


Aftermath

by Anonymous



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 12:25:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1347379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While both Sherlock and Mycroft had been returned without any physical injuries, John could tell that neither of them were giving him the whole story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock had been missing for over twelve hours. The last John had seen of him, he'd been climbing into the back of a black car, gun pointed at his head.  
  
The entire police force was on alert. While Lestrade didn't normally handle kidnapping cases, he'd insisted on being the one in charge of the search for his missing consulting detective. John had demanded to be let in on the investigation, but Lestrade had told him to wait at home, in case Sherlock showed up at some point. “I wouldn't put it past him to escape on his own.”  
  
John had gone to Mycroft's office, hoping that Mycroft might be willing to combine forces in attempting to track Sherlock down, but he learned from Mycroft's unusually frazzled assistant that Mycroft had been missing for the same length of time. She wouldn't tell him anything else.  
  
After calling Lestrade to let him in on the new information, John had been forced to simply return home and wait. Mrs. Hudson had made him some tea, then tried to convince him that everything would be all right. “He's found his way out of worse situations before.”  
  
John refused to sleep while Sherlock was still missing, but the hours were starting to catch up with him. As dawn arrived, he started to doze off, unable to keep himself awake any longer.  
  
He was startled to alertness when he heard the door opening. He rushed over to the stairs to find Mycroft and Sherlock climbing the steps. Mycroft had one hand on Sherlock's arm and was gently pushing him forward, as though he didn't expect Sherlock to do it on his own. His eyes were completely focused on Sherlock's face. Sherlock's eyes were pointed at the stairs, but didn't seem to truly see anything.  
  
“Sherlock!” John exclaimed. “Mycroft. Are either of you hurt?” His eyes automatically scanned Sherlock's body for any injuries, but he didn't see anything obvious. Sherlock's clothes were dirty, but there was no blood. His face was free of any cuts or bruises.  
  
“We're both free of physical injuries, fortunately,” Mycroft replied.  
  
Sherlock's face contorted in pain, his whole body convulsing for a brief second. Mycroft put a hand on his shoulder, but he jerked away, silently walking to the nearest chair and sitting down. His eyes were a million miles away.  
  
“Are you sure he isn't injured?” John asked. He stood in front of Sherlock, still checking for any signs of a wound. Sherlock's complete silence was starting to worry him. “Sherlock?”  
  
“I'm fine,” Sherlock said shortly.  
  
“Sherlock--” Mycroft echoed.  
  
“I'm _fine_ ,” Sherlock repeated, fists clenched against his thighs.  
  
John looked from Sherlock to Mycroft.  
  
Mycroft met his eyes for a moment, then looked away. “I'm sorry, Sherlock.”  
  
“Stop _apologizing_ , Mycroft,” Sherlock spat. He didn't look at either John or Mycroft.  
  
“Why are you apologizing?” John asked.  
  
Mycroft's mouth twitched slightly, but Sherlock spoke before he could. “Because he's an idiot,” he replied, hands shaking.  
  
Mycroft closed his eyes for a moment, then looked at John. “I think it would be best if I left,” he said, sounding resigned. “I trust you'll be able to look after him, John.” He turned to go.  
  
“Wait,” John replied. “What about-- I mean, who took you? How did you get away?”  
  
“Moriarty,” Mycroft said, not turning back. “He let us go.” He took another step toward the stairs.  
  
“You still have to talk to the police,” John replied. “Lestrade will want to know--”  
  
“No police,” Sherlock interrupted. “No Lestrade.”  
  
“But I told him you'd been kidnapped--”  
  
“Tell him you made a mistake,” Sherlock replied.  
  
“I will take care of it,” Mycroft said. “You don't need to worry yourselves.” He pulled out his phone, disappearing down the stairs.  
  
“Of course we don't,” Sherlock muttered.  
  
“What happened?” John asked. “What did Moriarty do to you while he had you?”  
  
“His usual games,” Sherlock replied, apparently not inclined to elaborate. He stalked over to the window, picking up his violin and scratching an angry, discordant series of noises.  
  
For once, John didn't have the heart to complain. “I'll be in my room, if you need... if you need to talk, or anything.”  
  
“I won't.”  
  
The next few weeks were tense. Whatever influence Mycroft had used had been enough to force the investigation to an end. Lestrade didn't seem happy about it, but he hadn't asked Sherlock any questions about what had happened. He'd seemed on the verge of doing so once or twice, but he hadn't gone through with it. The other members of the division were less cooperative, irritated at seemingly having their time wasted for no reason.  
  
Sherlock's behavior was starting to concern John. Sherlock had been prone to bizarre fits of hyperactivity for as long as John had known him, but they usually died down after a few days. This one had lasted more than two weeks. It also had a different feel from the others. Where Sherlock usually seemed like he'd swallowed a massive ball of energy that forced him into a frenzy of nervous activity, lately he seemed like he was forcing himself into continuous activity, despite not having the energy for it.  
  
He'd fallen asleep standing up the previous day, violin still in his hands.  
  
As Sherlock still refused to tell him anything about what had happened, John found himself in Mycroft's office looking for answers. He hoped that Mycroft might be willing to explain what had happened, for his brother's sake if nothing else.  
  
John was met with a great deal of resistance, but it seemed to lessen just a hint every time he mentioned the need to help Sherlock.  
  
“He won't tell me anything, and I don't think he's ever going to,” John said. “There's nothing I can do if I don't know what's wrong.”  
  
Mycroft sighed in defeat, setting his pen down on his desk. “You're right.”  
  
John waited a moment, but Mycroft didn't elaborate. “Well?”  
  
Mycroft winced, then straightened in his chair. “When Moriarty had us, he forced us to... perform acts of a sexual nature.”  
  
John stared for a moment, wide-eyed. “With... with him, you mean?” he asked, suddenly feeling very, very uncomfortable.  
  
Mycroft squeezed his eyes shut. “With each other.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
John didn't know how to respond to that.  
  
They sat in awkward silence for more than a minute before Mycroft finally spoke. “If that's all you need, I really do have things to attend to.”  
  
“Right. Of course.” John got to his feet, all but bolting from the room.  
  
John didn't go back to Baker Street immediately. He didn't know what he should say to Sherlock after learning what he had, and this was one situation where he absolutely didn't want to say the wrong thing. He wandered around for several hours before realizing that he wasn't any closer to knowing what the right thing to say would be, if such a thing even existed. If he'd had any idea where Moriarty was, he'd have killed him with his bare hands.  
  
He eventually walked in to 221b to the sound of gunshots. A frantic Mrs. Hudson was at the foot of the stairs. “He's shooting at the walls again!”  
  
“Don't worry,” John replied. “I'll get him to stop.”  
  
He climbed the stairs quickly, almost relieved at the crisis. Being shot at was something he knew how to deal with.  
  
The shots stopped when he reached the top of the stairs. Sherlock was sprawled out on the sofa, John's gun in his hand, loading the one remaining bullet into the chamber. He spun the cylinder idly. “John.”  
  
“Sherlock. Give me the gun.” John reached out his hand.  
  
“I'm busy, John.” He spun the cylinder again, but didn't close it.  
  
John grabbed the gun and wrested it away from him. “You can't shoot at the walls. It's dangerous.”  
  
“I was bored,” Sherlock replied. “And you weren't here.” He looked John over. “You've been aimlessly wandering the city. Why?”  
  
“I went to see Mycroft earlier,” John said. He swallowed. “He told me. What Moriarty forced you to do, I mean.”  
  
Sherlock sat up, eyes wild. “What _exactly_ did Mycroft say?”  
  
John frowned. “He said that Moriarty forced you to...” He cleared his throat. “...'perform acts of sexual nature' with each other.”  
  
Sherlock laughed harshly. “Is that what he said?”  
  
“It's... not true?” John asked.  
  
“No, it's true,” Sherlock said. He squeezed the cushion next to him, fingers looking like they might break from the force. He didn't meet John's gaze.  
  
“Then what's wrong with what he said?” John asked carefully.  
  
Sherlock scowled. “It appears to say everything, but leaves out all of the important details.”  
  
John took a deep breath. “What sort of details should he have given me?”  
  
Sherlock said nothing.  
  
“Look, I'm sure Mycroft only wanted to protect you,” John said. “I doubt it's because he's trying to hide what he was forced to do to you--”  
  
“He didn't do anything to me,” Sherlock interrupted.  
  
John blinked. “Sorry, what--?”  
  
“Mycroft didn't do anything anything to me,” Sherlock repeated, voice low and angry. “He _couldn't_ do anything to me. Moriarty ordered him to fuck me, but he couldn't get an erection. Not from...” Sherlock closed his eyes. “Not from manual or oral stimulation. Nothing worked.”  
  
John didn't bother to ask who had performed said stimulation. “What happened then?”  
  
“Moriarty ordered me to do it. I was...” Sherlock swallowed, shoulders shaking. “I was able to get sufficiently stimulated. To do it.” He sucked in a breath. “Mycroft couldn't do it, but I...” He laughed, slightly hysterically. “ _I_ could. All the way through to the end.”  
  
“You mean you... had an orgasm?”  
  
Sherlock crossed his arms, his whole upper body seeming to close in on itself. “Yes.”  
  
John felt his chest tighten. “It was a natural physical response. You couldn't help it.”  
  
“ _Mycroft_ managed it somehow.”  
  
“He's older than you are,” John said. “And I'm sure Mycroft doesn't blame you.”  
  
“I know he doesn't blame me,” Sherlock replied, glaring at the floor. “He kept telling me it was all right. He apologized several times after I finished,” Sherlock added, hitting his leg with his fist. “He apologized to me for what _I_ did to _him_.”  
  
John rubbed his forehead. “He's protective of you. He probably sees the whole thing as being his fault.”  
  
“I know that,” Sherlock replied irritably. “He continues to act like the whole thing is his fault, when in reality none of it is his fault.”  
  
John tilted his head down, looking Sherlock right in the eyes. “Because it's actually Moriarty's fault, right?”  
  
Sherlock tried to look away, but John caught the side of his face.  
  
“Right?”  
  
“Mostly his fault,” Sherlock replied.  
  
“ _Entirely_ his fault,” John insisted.  
  
Sherlock jerked his head away. “It wouldn't have been possible if I hadn't reacted the way I did.”  
  
“What? Do you really think Moriarty would have just...” John waved a hand. “...let you go without doing anything? Does that really seem likely?”  
  
“What else could he have done?” Sherlock retorted.  
  
“Well, he could have shot both you and Mycroft for not cooperating, for one,” John replied. “He could have given you drugs to force a reaction out of you. He could have made you use... other objects to achieve what he wanted.”  
  
“That doesn't justify the orgasm,” Sherlock said, the final word barely audible.  
  
“You don't have to justify the orgasm. It was involuntary,” John replied. “But it also ended the whole thing. If you hadn't had one, Moriarty could have forced you to keep going indefinitely.”  
  
Sherlock shuddered.  
  
John cringed. “Sorry, I shouldn't have--”  
  
“No,” Sherlock replied. “No, you're right. That's a perfectly reasonable way of looking at it.” He paused, then opened his mouth for a moment before closing it again. He did it two more times, then stopped, shoulders sinking.  
  
“What is it?” John asked, sitting down on the sofa next to Sherlock.  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“I'm sure it's not nothing,” John said. He paused, waiting for Sherlock to say something, but nothing was forthcoming. “Look, you don't have to tell me everything if you don't want to. There are people you could go to...”  
  
Sherlock scoffed. “And have Mycroft reading through everything I say?”  
  
John chewed on his lip, remembering his first meeting with Mycroft. “You could ask him to promise not to--”  
  
“He'd promise and do it anyway,” Sherlock replied.  
  
John sighed, unable to muster a realistic defense against Sherlock's reasoning. “Just... you should talk to someone. Whether that's me or someone else.”  
  
“Talking never accomplishes anything,” Sherlock replied.  
  
“If it never accomplishes anything, then why did you bother talking to me?”  
  
Sherlock frowned, looking for a moment like he didn't know himself. “I didn't want you to remain misinformed about what happened.”  
  
John considered arguing, but decided it wasn't the time. “Have you seen Mycroft at all since it happened?” He suspected he knew the answer, but he had to ask.  
  
Sherlock stayed quiet.  
  
“Okay, I assume that's a 'no',” John continued. “Because you don't want to see him, or because you don't want him to see you?”  
  
“I never wanted to see him before this happened,” Sherlock replied, the slightly vulnerable look on his face contradicting his words. “Why would I want to see him now?”  
  
“To... I don't know... resolve things, maybe?” John replied.  
  
“Mycroft and I never resolve anything. He still refuses to admit he was wrong about things that occurred decades ago.”  
  
“Just think about it,” John said. “I'm sure he still wants to see you.”  
  
Sherlock's face scrunched up for a second, then went completely blank. “Fine. I'll think about it.”


	2. Chapter 2

Days passed, followed by weeks and months. Mycroft didn't contact John or Sherlock about any cases during that time; in fact, he didn't contact either of them at all. Sherlock returned to something approaching normal, to those who didn't know any better.  
  
John, however, noticed that Sherlock no longer made public comments about other people's sex lives, even when the evidence was obvious enough for John to make a deduction from it. When Donovan had gone into a closed office with Anderson and left with paperclips stuck to her back, Sherlock had simply raised his eyebrows in recognition, then continued arguing with Lestrade about the case they were working on.  
  
Sherlock also completely ignored John's girlfriends. He didn't call John when he was out on a date or complain about the time he'd been absent. He made no comments about John even having dates, let alone what he'd deduced about how they'd gone. John would have been happier about this if he hadn't known the reason for it.  
  
Things were going relatively smoothly – until Moriarty started sending presents.  
  
It started with magazines – pages upon pages of violent hardcore pornography. He left different notes in each package, such as 'I saw these and thought of you <3' and 'You need these more than I do.'  
  
Sherlock set a pile of them on fire in the middle of the sitting room, nearly burning the house down in the process.  
  
Moriarty followed up with pictures of Mycroft. 'Is he the only who does it for you? No wonder you were a virgin for so long.'  
  
“We should tell Mycroft about this,” John said, looking through the photos of Mycroft getting into a car, eating at a restaurant, sitting in the Diogenes Club. “If Moriarty's having him stalked, he needs to know about it.”  
  
“I'm sure he already knows about it,” Sherlock replied. He made a grab for the photos, but John moved his hands away.  
  
“What do you intend to do with them?” he asked.  
  
“Burn them,” Sherlock replied. “What did you think I intended to do with them?” he asked, tone angry and almost... paranoid.  
  
“I don't know. That's why I was asking.” John frowned. “Why burn them? They're just pictures of Mycroft. Even if you still aren't ready to look at him--”  
  
Sherlock scowled. “I have no problem with looking at Mycroft,” he replied, pointedly focusing his eyes on the top photograph. His eye twitched after a few seconds.  
  
“That's... good,” John said, not really believing it for a moment. “As I was saying. Mycroft might be able to learn something useful from the photos. You never know.”  
  
Sherlock snapped his head up. “ _Mycroft_ might be able to learn something from them? You think he could, but I couldn't?”  
  
“No, that's not what I--” John cut off, exasperated. “Look, you were ready to burn them a minute ago!”  
  
Sherlock glared at John, then at the photos. “Fine. You take care of them, then.”  
  
“I will,” John replied. He put them back in the envelope, then picked up the note and reread it. He opened his mouth, then bit his lip.  
  
Sherlock's eyes darted from John to the note, then back again. “What is it? What are you thinking?”  
  
“Were you really...?” John began, then stopped. “Was that really the first time you ever... with anyone?”  
  
Sherlock averted his gaze for a moment, then forcibly turned it back on John. “Yes. That was my first sexual experience of any kind,” he replied. “Is that important?” He glared at John. “Does it make the whole thing _worse_ , somehow?”  
  
John wanted to say 'yes'. It definitely made him feel worse to know, though he couldn't quite articulate why. However, he knew Sherlock wasn't likely to appreciate any of the half-formed explanations he might come up, so he held back. “...No.”  
  
“You're lying,” Sherlock said, eyes narrowing. “It took you too long to answer.”  
  
“That doesn't mean I'm lying,” John replied. He folded up the note and put it in his pocket, then picked up the envelope and resealed it. “I'll take these to Mycroft,” he said, heading down the stairs before Sherlock could object.  
  
Mycroft was unsurprised to learn that the photos had been taken. “Two of the photographers have already been caught by my security detail. They're currently being held for questioning,” he said with a bland smile. He leaned back against his desk. “Is that all he sent?”  
  
“Er.” If John had thought a little further ahead, he probably would have realized that Mycroft was bound to ask that particular question. “No--”  
  
Mycroft quickly reached into John's pocket, removing the note before John could stop him. His face fell slightly as he read it. “How is Sherlock doing?” he asked quietly.  
  
“He's... doing a lot better, for the most part,” John replied. “When Moriarty isn't taunting him.”  
  
Mycroft looked at him shrewdly. “This isn't the only incident, I take it?”  
  
“No,” John replied. “Just the only one involving you.”  
  
Mycroft sighed.  
  
“Maybe you should talk to him,” John suggested.  
  
Mycroft shook his head. “In this case, I won't force him to endure my presence if he does not wish it. His well-being always comes first.”  
  
“But you would being willing to see him, if he wanted to see you?” John asked.  
  
“That's always been the case,” Mycroft replied, mouth curved in a small, sad smile. “Always.”  
  
John's phone beeped; there was a text from Sherlock, telling him to come at once. “We have a case. I have to go.”  
  
“Of course,” Mycroft replied.  
  
John joined Sherlock at the scene of the latest crime, where a man had apparently been run over by a car – while in the middle of a library. They threw themselves into the case, not speaking of the Moriarty issue even once for the three days it took to solve it.  
  
During those three short days, John foolishly managed to think that the last package might be the end of it. Moriarty had already sent pornography. He'd already sent pictures of Mycroft. Unless Moriarty somehow obtained pornography of Mycroft, there didn't seem to be much else for him to do.  
  
So, when Sherlock received yet another package, John was mildly surprised. He felt his stomach sink when Sherlock opened it, pulling out a video tape with a note stuck to it.  
  
'I've had a little trouble finding the perfect gift, but here's something I _know_ you enjoyed.'  
  
Sherlock's hands shook, rattling the tape. John gently pulled it away from him, pushing him over to the sofa. John took the lack of any resistance as a sign of just how upset Sherlock was. “Sherlock?”  
  
Sherlock covered his face with his hands.  
  
John swallowed. “If you want to burn it--”  
  
Sherlock dropped his hands. “There's no point. I'm sure he has plenty of copies.”  
  
John hadn't even thought of that. “ _You_ don't need to have a copy. You can destroy it, if you want to.”  
  
Sherlock looked at the tape in John's hands. “What if it's not what we think it is?”  
  
John blinked at him. “Sorry... what?”  
  
“Moriarty lies. He could be lying right now,” Sherlock said. “The tape might be blank. Or it might contain a message.”  
  
“I think this is the message,” John replied. “You aren't thinking of watching it, are you?”  
  
Sherlock shuddered almost imperceptibly, then frowned. “I can't risk overlooking something that important.”  
  
“But... what if it's exactly what the note implies?” John asked. “You'd just end up reliving the whole thing over again.”  
  
“And you think I can't handle it?” Sherlock demanded. “Or is it that you think--” He cut off suddenly, looking away.  
  
“I don't think _anyone_ who went through what you went through could handle that,” John replied, clutching the tape tightly in his hands. He didn't care what mad idea Sherlock had in his head; there was no way in hell he was letting him watch that tape.  
  
Sherlock didn't appear placated. “I have to know what's on it,” he insisted. He put a hand to his chin, then scrutinized John intently.  
  
John felt a growing sense of dread. “What?”  
  
“You,” Sherlock replied. “You could check it. The tape.”  
  
John's eyes went wide. He took a step back. “I really, really don't think that's...”  
  
“If you aren't willing to--”  
  
“It's not--” John rubbed his face. “Are you sure you want me to see that? See you... in that situation?”  
  
Sherlock glared down at his knees in silence for nearly a minute. “You're the only one I would consider allowing to see it.” He fiddled with a cushion. “You already know what I did.”  
  
John took a step toward him. “You didn't do--”  
  
“Yes, I did,” Sherlock replied. He paused, fingers digging into the cushion. “You already know I did, and if you watch the tape, you'll see.”  
  
John hesitated, wondering if repeating what he'd been saying after watching the tape might be enough to finally convince Sherlock that he hadn't done anything wrong. He didn't want to watch the thing, but it was starting to look like the best way of stopping Sherlock from watching it himself. “All right.” He swallowed. “If you need me to watch the tape, then I'll watch the tape. Maybe you're right, and it's just another message from Moriarty.”  
  
Sherlock's whole body sagged in relief. “I...” He trailed off, looking uncertain. “Thank you. For doing this,” he said, somewhat stiffly.  
  
“It's not a problem.” John cleared his throat. “So. Um. What are you going to do? While I'm watching the tape, I mean.”  
  
Sherlock stood. “I'll visit the morgue,” he said, picking up his coat.  
  
“We're really doing this, then,” John said. “Doing it... right now.”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock replied. “I'll return in two hours time.”  
  
“Two hours?” John repeated, unable to keep the horror from his voice. “You had to-- for two hours--”  
  
“Don't be an idiot,” Sherlock replied. “Two hours is the capacity of the tape. I need you to watch it through to the very end, even if you reach a part that appears to be static.”  
  
“Oh. That's--” John exhaled in relief. “Right. I can do that.”  
  
Sherlock walked down the stairs without another comment.  
  
John waited a few minutes to make sure he was really gone, then pushed the tape into the VCR. He hesitated a moment before pushing play, driven forward only by the thought of what Sherlock might end up doing if he didn't go through with it.


	3. Chapter 3

John heaved a sigh of relief when Moriarty's grinning face appeared on the screen, no one else in sight.  
  
“Hi!” Moriarty gave a small wave. “Sherlock. Or is it John, perhaps?”  
  
John glared at the television.  
  
“No matter. Whoever you are, you're in for a _real_ treat. You get to see the Virgin...” Moriarty fanned his hands out in a circle. “...deflowered!”  
  
John sighed, realizing he'd been far too quick to get his hopes up.  
  
The scene cut to a bedroom, camera focused in on a small bed from a slightly high angle. Sherlock and Mycroft sat next to each other on the bed, both naked, both trying to look completely unfazed by the situation they were in. Mycroft managed it better than Sherlock – in fact, Mycroft's posture was so normal that John almost wondered if he even realized he was naked.  
  
Sherlock was sitting a bit too awkwardly to be considered relaxed, glaring at a point just below the camera.  
  
“Oh, don't be like that!” Moriarty's voice called. “This is a wonderful opportunity I'm giving you.”  
  
“And what opportunity would that be?” Sherlock asked.  
  
“You mean you haven't figured it out? I'm starting to wonder if you really are the genius everyone says you are. I'm fairly certain your brother already knows.”  
  
Mycroft closed his eyes for a moment, then stared impassively into the distance.  
  
Sherlock gritted his teeth, still glaring ahead of him.  
  
“Try simple _deduction_ ,” Moriarty added.  
  
Sherlock glanced at his surroundings, looking at the bed and Mycroft in quick succession. Mycroft didn't look back at him.  
  
Horror filled Sherlock's face, only to be quickly repressed. “I still have no idea,” he said, voice slightly higher-pitched than normal. “There's no point in trying to deduce the plans of a complete madman.”  
  
“I know for a fact you don't believe that one,” Moriarty replied. “But it doesn't matter. This is the day you lose your virginity!” He laughed. “I thought your brother might like to help. He does so care about your well-being.”  
  
Mycroft said nothing.  
  
“So, that's all it is?” Sherlock spat. “You need participants for some sick incestuous fantasy of yours? How _dull_.”  
  
“Dull? You think this is _dull_?” Moriarty asked, tone almost deceptively sweet. “I suppose you'll have no problems getting on with it, then.”  
  
Mycroft closed his eyes again, expression pained.  
  
Sherlock's eyes darted around the room.  
  
“Hmm. I don't think I made myself clear.” The sound of a gun clicking echoed through the television speakers. _“Get on with it.”_  
  
Mycroft's eyes flew open, focusing on that spot just below the camera. “What precisely do you want us to do?” he asked.  
  
“Mycroft!” Sherlock stared at him, eyes wide.  
  
Mycroft kept his eyes where they were. “Sherlock,” he replied evenly.  
  
“Ooh, are we going to have a fight?” Moriarty asked. He laughed. “Will big brother have to force himself on baby brother to save his life?”  
  
Mycroft visibly tensed. He looked at Sherlock almost pleadingly.  
  
Sherlock swallowed, looking away. “No. He won't.”  
  
“Shame,” Moriarty said, sounding distinctly disappointed. “It would have made things more interesting.” A tube of something was flung onto the bed next to Mycroft from off camera. “Now, fuck your baby brother.”  
  
Sherlock shuddered, staring at the tube like it was a bomb that could go off at any moment. Mycroft picked it up, but didn't open it. He sighed, closing his eyes and reaching for his cock. Sherlock looked away, disgust plain on his face.  
  
Moriarty made a tsking sound. “No... let baby brother do that.”  
  
Mycroft looked at Sherlock. Sherlock didn't move.  
  
Moriarty spoke again. “I really don't want to have to--”  
  
“You won't,” Mycroft interrupted. He moved closer to Sherlock, then said something too soft for John to hear.  
  
“Hey, no whispering,” Moriarty ordered.  
  
Sherlock glared at Mycroft for a moment, then reached for Mycroft's cock without even looking at it. Mycroft closed his eyes, clenching his teeth.  
  
“No, eyes open. Look at each other.”  
  
Mycroft opened his eyes slowly, then looked at Sherlock. Sherlock struggled, eyes meeting Mycroft's for only a second before he looked away again. It took him several attempts to hold Mycroft's gaze. His hand worked continuously on Mycroft's cock, but Mycroft wasn't responding to the touch at all.  
  
After what felt like hours to John and undoubtedly even longer for the two men on camera, Moriarty spoke again. “Clearly big brother needs more than what you're giving him. Use your mouth.”  
  
Sherlock's head snapped up. “What?”  
  
“Use. Your. Mouth.”  
  
Sherlock shivered. He began to lower his head, then cringed away. After several seconds, he moved his head the full way down and stayed there.  
  
Mycroft's mouth twitched in disgust.  
  
John was quite grateful that the specifics of what Sherlock was trying to do weren't visible on camera.  
  
After another long wait, Moriarty made a frustrated noise. “Stop.”  
  
Sherlock jumped away from Mycroft, retreating all the way to the other end of the bed. He wiped saliva off of the edge of his mouth, gagging slightly.  
  
“Oh, don't think you're getting out of this,” Moriarty said.  
  
“He can't do it,” Sherlock snapped. “It's not physically possible.”  
  
“Perhaps not,” Moriarty replied. “But it doesn't matter; I've changed my mind. _You_ will fuck _him_.”  
  
Some of the tension visibly left Mycroft's body – he looked distinctly relieved at the change in plans, if not actually happy. He watched Sherlock carefully.  
  
Sherlock sat with his back straight, knees pulled up in front of him. He gave a small laugh; it wasn't a pleasant sound. “What makes you think I'll be any more able to do it than he was?”  
  
John felt a twinge of pain in his chest at the thought of just how thoroughly Sherlock was about to be proven wrong.  
  
“We'll just have to see, won't we?” Moriarty replied. “Now get to it, before I lose my patience.”  
  
Mycroft moved towards Sherlock slowly, deliberately. He set a hand on Sherlock's knee, but did nothing further.  
  
Sherlock met his gaze for a moment, then looked away, letting his legs fall down on the bed. “Just do it, Mycroft.”  
  
Mycroft pressed his palm firmly against Sherlock's cock, watching Sherlock's face intently as he did it. After a few seconds, he wrapped his fingers around it and began squeezing rhythmically.  
  
Sherlock hissed. He closed his eyes for a second, then focused them on the other side of the bed. His whole body had gone tense, and he had the look of a man who had just realized that something dreadful was about to happen.  
  
Mycroft had a similarly unhappy expression on his face, one that only got worse with every confused gasp from Sherlock. He didn't stop, however, and Sherlock's cock soon came to life under his fingers.  
  
Sherlock was shaking now, his head down and eyes locked on the floor. His gasps grew faster and faster, sounding more and more distressed with each passing moment. By the time he was fully erect, he was starting to hyperventilate.  
  
Mycroft let go of Sherlock's cock, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It's all right,” he said softly.  
  
Sherlock jerked away.  
  
Moriarty laughed. “What was that about not being able do this, again?”  
  
“Shut up,” Sherlock gasped.  
  
“There's no need to be so _rude_ ,” Moriarty replied. “Especially when you're so obviously enjoying the situation I've arranged for you.”  
  
“Shut _up_!” Sherlock repeated, face contorting in equal parts humiliation and shame.  
  
“Sherlock,” Mycroft said quietly.  
  
Sherlock's body went completely stiff. “I won't do it. We're done.”  
  
“Hmm. If you say so,” Moriarty replied. “I knew you weren't fond of your big brother, but I didn't think you'd actually let him die.” The barrel of a gun appeared on the edge of the screen.  
  
Mycroft closed his eyes.  
  
Sherlock swallowed. “Stop,” he said hoarsely. “I'll do it.”  
  
“Good,” Moriarty said, voice ever-pleasant.  
  
Sherlock turned to Mycroft, then hesitated, looking uncertain of how to proceed.  
  
Mycroft tucked his knees under him, then started to bend over.  
  
“No,” Moriarty called. “I want to _see_ your baby brother while he fucks you.”  
  
Mycroft said nothing. He took a pillow from the end of the bed and set it down in the middle of the mattress. He laid himself down face-up, knees bent and hips resting on the pillow. He uncapped the tube in his hand.  
  
“Let baby brother do that.”  
  
Mycroft's face twitched, but he handed the tube to Sherlock all the same. “Do you understand--”  
  
“I'm not an idiot, Mycroft,” Sherlock said harshly. He squeezed the tube over one of his fingers, then looked down, grimacing. His eyes met Mycroft's again.  
  
“It's all right, Sherlock.”  
  
Sherlock averted his gaze, then lowered his hand between Mycroft's legs. One leg blocked any view of what he was doing, but Mycroft hissed in pain. Sherlock went perfectly still, staring at Mycroft with a stricken expression.  
  
Mycroft took a deep breath before responding. “Keep going. It's all right.”  
  
Sherlock continued what he'd been doing for a short while, then pulled his hand away. He sat there, unmoving, looking down at Mycroft.  
  
Mycroft put a hand on his arm, pulling him closer. “Do it.”  
  
Sherlock closed his eyes for a moment, then glared down at his cock. He settled himself between Mycroft's legs, then pushed forward, guiding his cock with his hand. His eyes blinked rapidly, and his shoulders were shaking. He moved his hips slowly at first, then suddenly slid forward, burying himself deep inside Mycroft.  
  
Mycroft clenched his teeth, gripping the mattress hard with his fingers. He took another deep breath, visibly forcing himself to relax.  
  
Sherlock was staring at a point somewhere ahead of him, eyes blinking even more rapidly than before. His mouth was partially open, panting heavily. Red color spread from his cheeks to the rest of his face, then down his neck to his shoulders and chest. His stomach and thighs quivered, as though straining with the effort of keeping still.  
  
“Feels good, doesn't it?” Moriarty taunted.  
  
“No,” Sherlock sobbed, looking everywhere but at Mycroft.  
  
“Oh, come on,” Moriarty replied. “I know. He knows. It's obvious just from looking at you.” He laughed. “Or in his case, from _feeling_ you.”  
  
Sherlock's face scrunched up. “Sh-shut u-up.”  
  
Mycroft reached up and rubbed one trembling shoulder. “Don't listen to him. It's—”  
  
“It's not all right, Mycroft!” Sherlock snapped. He immediately looked horrified. “I'm sorry, I—”  
  
“You don't have to be sorry, Sherlock,” Mycroft said.  
  
“Oh, how _touching_ ,” Moriarty put in. “How does it feel to have your big brother comforting you even as you take pleasure in violating him?”  
  
Sherlock turned his face away.  
  
There was a short silence.  
  
John seriously considered stopping the tape at that point, possibly even destroying it before Sherlock came home. However, he knew that Sherlock would never forgive him if he did it, and that any attempt to contradict Moriarty's words would be futile if he didn't know everything the man had said.  
  
“I know you haven't done this before,” Moriarty said. “But this does actually require physical motion.”  
  
Sherlock still didn't move.  
  
“Or is it that you're trying to draw things out as long as possible, to prolong your enjoyment of this experience?”  
  
Sherlock's head snapped up. “Of course it isn't!” He glanced imploringly at Mycroft, then lowered his head again.  
  
“There's no point in dragging this out,” Mycroft told him. “Really, Sherlock, it's al...” He trailed off. “It's fine.”  
  
“If you say so, Mycroft,” Sherlock muttered. His hips moved slowly backward, then suddenly jerked forward again. He made a noise somewhere between a moan and a grunt, then stopped, biting his lip. He tensed his thighs for a few seconds, then jerked his hips again.  
  
He took a ragged breath, then thrust his hips erratically several more times before finally falling into a steady rhythm. His expression flickered between intense pleasure and extreme distress, never settling on one or the other for very long.  
  
Mycroft watched Sherlock with obvious concern, seemingly indifferent to what was happening to his own body.  
  
For the next few minutes, the only sounds were those of the bed creaking and Sherlock's small, tortured moans.  
  
At that point Sherlock sped up, pounding furiously into Mycroft before freezing in place, sobbing. His toes curled; his fingers dug hard into Mycroft's hips. After a few moments, all his muscles abruptly untensed at once, causing him to fall awkwardly down on top of Mycroft.  
  
A look of near-panic crossed Mycroft's face. “Sherlock?” He rolled Sherlock off of him, sitting at his side.  
  
Sherlock's head fell to the side, giving the camera a good view of his face. His eyes were almost empty, his red face frozen in a look of disgust.  
  
“I suppose it must have been too much for him,” Moriarty said. “The first time always is the most difficult.”  
  
“Sherlock?” Mycroft repeated, frantically shaking his shoulder.  
  
Sherlock blinked up at Mycroft a few times before a horrified look crossed his face. He sat up, hugging his legs to his chest and hiding his face in his knees.  
  
“Sherlock, I'm sorry,” Mycroft said. “I shouldn't have...” he trailed off, looking at that point just below the camera. “We've played your little game. What do you intend to do with us now?”  
  
A ball of clothing flew at him from off camera. “Send you home, naturally.”  
  
“I suppose I should thank you for that,” Mycroft said, smiling stiffly. He quickly donned his own clothing. The tape cut back to Moriarty just after Mycroft began dressing Sherlock.


	4. Chapter 4

John barely managed not to punch his fist through the screen when Moriarty's face appeared.  
  
Moriarty mock-fanned himself with one hand. “Phew! That was _hot_ , wasn't it? Of course...” Moriarty made an exaggerated frown. “Big brother didn't seem to be having nearly as much fun as baby brother.”  
  
John couldn't have felt more glad at that moment that he hadn't allowed Sherlock to watch the tape.  
  
Moriarty grinned. “I think we need to see a bit of big brother enjoying himself, don't you? Here's a little something from my _private_ collection.”  
  
John had a moment of panic over the thought that Moriarty might have kidnapped Mycroft again, but the tape cut to a shot of Mycroft in the middle of very obviously consensual sex. The horror he felt largely subsided, replaced by a combination of discomfort at seeing Mycroft in such an intimate situation and unease at the question of how Moriarty had managed to obtain the footage he was watching.  
  
Any possibility of not telling him had just been thrown completely out the window. Even if the first clip of Mycroft hadn't been enough to warrant notifying him, the next eleven certainly would have been.  
  
Mycroft was fucking a different young man in each clip, each in a different hotel room. Mycroft was noticeably heavier in some of them, and in one of them he even had a beard. John didn't have Sherlock's deductive abilities, but even he could see that they'd been compiled from a larger collection of footage, taken over a long period of time.  
  
John did his best to pick up the sort of details he knew Sherlock would care about, but the main content of the clips was too distracting. In the end, the majority of what he gleaned from the footage he viewed consisted of details about Mycroft's sexual habits that he couldn't mention to Sherlock anyway.  
  
After the final clip ended, the tape went to static. John let the tape continue playing for the next two minutes until it hit the very end, but there was nothing else to see.  
  
John barely had time to take a breath before he heard the door opening downstairs. He quickly turned the television off and removed the tape from the VCR, making it back to the sofa just as Sherlock reached the top of the stairs. “You have good timing,” he said nervously.  
  
Sherlock sat down in the nearest chair. He looked at John for a brief second before lowering his gaze. “Was it what he implied it was?”  
  
“Ye-es...” John said slowly.  
  
“So, you've seen it.” Sherlock sat up straight, gripping the arms of the chair.  
  
John's throat went dry. He knew he should be saying something reassuring, but he had no idea what. Mycroft had been nothing but reassuring in the video, and it had only seemed to make things worse, in it's own way. “Yeah. I've seen it,” he replied. “It doesn't change anything.”  
  
Sherlock scowled, roughly scratching the upholstery with his fingers. “How could it not possibly change anything? You saw me...” He stopped, then visibly forced himself to continue. “...saw me _fucking_ Mycroft.”  
  
“At gunpoint,” John pointed out. Before Sherlock could throw another argument at him, he added: “Don't listen to any of the things Moriarty said. They aren't true.”  
  
“They are,” Sherlock replied shortly. “You saw me--”  
  
“I saw you try to refuse to do what Moriarty was forcing you to do,” John interrupted. “I saw you looking absolutely miserable the whole time you were doing it.”  
  
“You must also have seen how aroused I was,” Sherlock said.  
  
“It doesn't matter,” John replied. “You clearly hated every moment of it.”  
  
Sherlock bit his lip. “...It felt good,” he said quietly, staring at the floor. “It felt exactly as good as he was claiming.”  
  
John shifted uncomfortably. “It... it's supposed to feel good. Physically,” John replied. “But I saw you. You were not enjoying yourself. You didn't want any of it to happen.”  
  
Sherlock didn't appear reassured. “Was that the only thing on the tape?”  
  
“No,” John replied. “There was a short bit from Moriarty at the beginning. Nothing you need to hear,” he added quickly, seeing Sherlock's expression. “The, uh, rest of the tape was of Mycroft.”  
  
Sherlock gripped the arm of the chair tightly. “More surveillance?” he asked.  
  
“Yes. Well, no, not exactly,” John replied. He cleared his throat. “It was of Mycroft... having sex. With different people.”  
  
Sherlock closed his eyes tightly, expression pained.  
  
“I'll give the tape to Mycroft. He'll be able to--”  
  
“What?” Sherlock's eyes shot open. “You can't give it to Mycroft!”  
  
“There's more than an hour and a half of video of him on here,” John replied.  
  
“Why are you willing to let Mycroft watch it, but not me?” Sherlock demanded, looking utterly paranoid. “He went through worse than I did.”  
  
John blinked. He hadn't even considered the tape's possible effect on Mycroft. “I don't know,” John said. “Mycroft just seemed less... affected by what happened. And it's not a problem if he sees himself having sex.”  
  
“But it _is_ a problem if _I_ see him having sex,” Sherlock said, tone full of some accusation John couldn't understand for the life of him.  
  
“Of course it's a--!” John replied. “It would remind you of what happened.”  
  
“I've already been reminded of what happened,” Sherlock replied.  
  
“Well, I'm also working from the strange assumption that you might not want to watch a tape of Mycroft having sex,” John said, holding his hands up in exasperation.  
  
“Are you?” Sherlock asked, eyes boring holes into John's face.  
  
John stared back at him, baffled. “Yes! I am,” he said.  
  
“You aren't worried I might _get off_ on it?” Sherlock demanded.  
  
“What? No, of course not!” John exclaimed. “No one would think that.”  
  
Sherlock turned his head away.  
  
“What? _You_ aren't worried that you might get off on it, are you?” John asked, standing.  
  
Sherlock said nothing.  
  
“I'm sure you wouldn't,” John said firmly.  
  
“Why?” Sherlock asked. “I got off on it at the time.”  
  
“That doesn’t... you had physical stimulation,” John replied. “You wouldn't get off on it now. I'm certain of it.”  
  
Sherlock opened his mouth several times as though to say something, but nothing came out. He fidgeted in his chair, becoming more and more agitated until he finally came out with a barely audible: “What if I have?”  
  
“Have what?”  
  
“Got off on it.” Sherlock swallowed. “Since then.”  
  
“Sorry, what?” John blurted the words out before he could stop himself.  
  
Sherlock winced. “It's the first thing I think of,” he replied. “Whenever I'm... when I'm aroused. I can't not think of it.”  
  
John dropped back down on the sofa. “That's... um. Wow.” He scrambled to find an appropriate response. “That's different. Reliving what happened to you isn't the same as getting off on it.” He laughed nervously. “I mean, it’s not like you actually--”  
  
Sherlock closed his eyes.  
  
“Or-- or maybe you do,” John said, suddenly losing all hoping of ever finding the right thing to say. He gulped once, then twice. “It’s okay, if you do that. Or don’t do that. Whatever you are doing or not doing is completely-- fine.”  
  
“Stop babbling,” Sherlock said, glaring at him. “It’s obvious that you know as well as I do that it isn’t ‘fine’.”  
  
“It...” John tried to insist that it was, but the words wouldn’t come. “Okay, I don’t know if it’s _fine_ , but it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. Or that you’re doing something wrong.” He swallowed again. “If you want to do it, you should do it.”  
  
“I don’t _want_ to do it,” Sherlock said irritably.  
  
John felt hopelessly confused. “If you don’t want to do it, then why--”  
  
“If I don’t, I just keeping think about it,” Sherlock interrupted. “Continuously.”  
  
“That’s...” John struggled to find a word he could actually say. _Horrible. Disturbing. Fucked up._ “I’m sorry.”  
  
Sherlock gritted his teeth. “You had nothing to do with it.”  
  
“Right,” John replied. He paused, feeling a bit light-headed. “So you just... you relive what happened. While doing... that.”  
  
“While wanking, yes,” Sherlock said. He opened his mouth, then closed it, pressing his lips tightly together for a moment. “And I don’t relive it exactly as it happened,” he added eventually.  
  
“Is it worse?” John asked, remembering some of his own nightmares about Afghanistan. It had been bad enough in real life, but on a bad night his mind could produce things far more terrifying than anything he’d actually experienced, including being shot.  
  
Sherlock made a strange gesture with his head, as though he couldn’t decide whether to nod or shake it. “He enjoys it. When I imagine it.”  
  
“He?” John repeated. At first he wondered if Sherlock meant Moriarty, even though that didn’t make any sense. It took him a moment to figure out what Sherlock was actually talking about. “Mycroft, you mean?”  
  
Sherlock looked down. “Yes, I mean Mycroft,” he said quietly. He took a long breath. “I think about Mycroft enjoying it.” He started shaking. “Enjoying being... horribly violated. By me.”  
  
John reached out a hand toward Sherlock’s arm, stopping just short of actually touching it. After a few seconds, he patted it awkwardly. He thought over what Sherlock had just said, trying to figure out what the hell he was supposed to think or say about it. “It kind of makes sense,” he said slowly.  
  
Sherlock jerked his arm away, looking like he’d been slapped. “What do you mean it 'makes sense'?” he demanded. “What about it _makes sense_?”  
  
“I just mean... Well, it would have been... not as bad, wouldn’t it? If Mycroft had enjoyed it,” John replied. “And obviously, you wouldn’t want to think about him not enjoying it, if you didn’t have to.”  
  
Sherlock’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t want to think about it at all.”  
  
“I know,” John replied. He paused. “You really haven’t been able to think of anything else since it happened? Not ever?”  
  
Sherlock shifted uncomfortably.  
  
“It’s okay if you haven’t, I just--”  
  
“I have,” Sherlock said. He fiddled with his sleeve. “Unfortunately, it’s not much better.”  
  
“What is it?” John asked, hoping it was something that could be worked with. ‘Not much better’ still meant it was better, after all.  
  
“Sometimes I imagine Mycroft forcing himself on me in revenge.”  
  
John froze. “Oh,” he said weakly. “Mycroft... he would never do that to you.”  
  
“Yes, John,” Sherlock replied. “I had that rather thoroughly proven to me, if you’ll remember.” He kicked his foot against the coffee table.  
  
John shook his head in an attempt to clear it. “Right. Sorry. Um. It’s just a fantasy, anyway. It’s not like you really want Mycroft to--” John felt a horrible sense of dread from the moment he started the sentence, and seeing Sherlock squirm in his chair only confirmed what he feared. “Really?”  
  
Sherlock glared at the wall. “We’d be even.”  
  
“No--” John stopped to take a breath. “No, you wouldn’t be. You’re even right now.”  
  
Sherlock scowled, but didn’t say anything.  
  
“If you don’t believe me, ask Mycroft.”  
  
“I can’t talk to Mycroft.”  
  
“Why not?” John asked, then remembered what had started their disturbing conversation in the first place. “Are you worried about... ah, reacting to him?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock replied. “Though I’m certain he’ll know what I’ve been thinking about.”  
  
“He can’t know that,” John said. “He’s not a mind-reader.”  
  
“He’ll know,” Sherlock repeated stubbornly.  
  
“I don’t think it would bother him,” John said, thinking of how undisturbed Mycroft had seemed by the actual experience, both during and since.  
  
Sherlock stared at him incredulously. “You don’t think it would bother Mycroft to know that I’ve been wanking to the thought of him violently assaulting me?”  
  
John opened his mouth, then closed it again. “He wouldn’t care about you any less.”  
  
“I know that.” Sherlock shook his head. “That’s not the problem.”  
  
“What is the problem, then?” John asked.  
  
Sherlock stood, walking over to the window. He peered outside for a long moment before responding. “I wouldn't be able to refuse anything he asked of me.”  
  
It was strange to imagine Sherlock being unable to refuse Mycroft anything, but after hearing what Sherlock thought Mycroft would be justified in doing to him, John found himself believing it. “What are you so certain he’d want you to do?” John asked.  
  
“Take care of myself,” Sherlock spat, as though it was the worst fate he could possibly imagine.  
  
“That doesn’t sound so terrible,” John said.  
  
Sherlock gave a short, low laugh. “It is if you use his definition of taking care of myself,” Sherlock replied, picking up his riding crop and tapping it against his palm. “Stop doing dangerous things. Stop associating with dangerous people. Don’t go anywhere interesting. Find a real job. Go to sleep every night. Eat every day. Have tea with Mummy.” He flung himself back down into the chair. “I wouldn't be able to refuse any of it, and I wouldn’t be able to _do_ any of it, either. Even if I did all of it perfectly, none of it would ever truly be enough to make up for what I did to him.”  
  
John wanted to argue against Sherlock having to make up for anything, but he was starting to write that off as a lost cause. “You don’t know that he’d ask you to do any of that,” he said instead. “Mycroft hasn’t asked anything of you in months.”  
  
“If I see him, I’ll know what he wants, even if he doesn’t actually say any of it,” Sherlock replied.  
  
“It sounds like you know now, even without seeing him,” John said. “Would actually seeing him be that much worse?”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock replied. He poked at his foot with his riding crop. “I would be able to see him looking at me.”  
  
There was a short silence.  
  
“So, the current plan is to just never talk to Mycroft ever again,” John said. “For the rest of your life.”  
  
Sherlock looked away.  
  
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”  
  
Sherlock remained silent, expression almost entirely blank but for the obvious unhappiness in his eyes.  
  
John decided not to press the matter just then. Convincing Sherlock to do anything he didn’t want to do usually took dozens of attempts spread out over a period of time. He thought it would probably be better to wait for a day without the added stress of receiving ‘presents’ from Moriarty, anyway.  
  
He stood, holding up the tape. “Well, I _am_ going to see Mycroft,” he said. “He needs to know about the tape.”  
  
“Make a copy first,” Sherlock said.  
  
John stared at him. “A cop-- you really want me to make another copy of this thing?”  
  
“I might need to see it eventually,” Sherlock replied. “Moriarty may have left a hidden message in the introduction that you weren’t able to notice.”  
  
“I could make a copy of just the introduction,” John pointed out.  
  
Sherlock hesitated, then shook his head. “All of it.”  
  
John sighed. One of the only benefits of taking the tape to Mycroft was that it would get the thing far away from Sherlock. He didn’t relish the thought of having it around the flat.  
  
On the other hand, he could also see some of the logic in what Sherlock was saying. For all they knew, Moriarty might kidnap another group of people and base the key to their safety on some obscure section of the video. John certainly wouldn’t put it past him.  
  
“If I’m going to make a copy of it, shouldn’t we keep the original and give the copy to Mycroft?” he asked.  
  
“No,” Sherlock replied. “I don’t want Mycroft to know you made a copy. Give him the original.”  
  
“Why don’t you want--?”  
  
“If he knows we have a copy, he’ll find a way to take it away,” Sherlock replied. “For my own good.”  
  
On some level, John couldn’t help but wish that would actually happen. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll make a copy of it, and I won’t tell Mycroft about it. But you aren’t going anywhere near it.”  
  
Sherlock stood. “I’ll be in my room,” he said, stalking off down the hallway.  
  
John hooked the VCR up to his computer, then spent the next two hours transferring the video onto his computer. Fortunately, he didn’t have to watch it again, other than the few quick times he checked to verify that the transfer was working correctly. He burned the video file to a DVD, then immediately deleted it from his hard drive. After labeling the DVD ‘Tape Copy’, he hid it away inside his room. Sherlock would undoubtedly be able to find it if he tried, but he would at least have to be actively looking for it.  
  
He came back downstairs and found Sherlock using his laptop.  
  
“It’s done,” John said.  
  
“I know,” Sherlock replied, not looking up.  
  
“I’ll just take this to Mycroft, then,” John said, putting the tape back in the envelope it had come in.  
  
Sherlock tensed. “You do that.”  
  
John spent the entire trip to Mycroft’s office wondering what the hell he was going to say to the man when he finally got there. Things didn’t get any easier when he actually arrived.


	5. Chapter 5

John was led into the office by Mycroft's current assistant. He was so preoccupied with figuring out what to say to Mycroft that he didn’t even think about hitting on her.  
  
Once he was inside, his mouth dried up. He stood awkwardly in front of Mycroft’s desk, holding the envelope with the tape in it.  
  
Mycroft was reading a tabloid. The headline read ‘Royal Lesbian Bondage Scandal Continues!’ From the look on his face, he’d already had a very trying day.  
  
“I didn’t know you read this sort of thing,” John said.  
  
“It’s not for my own benefit, I assure you,” Mycroft replied. His eyes settled on the package in John’s hands, and several more lines appeared on his face. “Another package from Moriarty,” he said, sounding weary. “Likely a video tape, I see.”  
  
“Yes,” John replied, looking at Mycroft’s forehead instead of meeting his eyes. He set the envelope down on the desk. “It’s... it’s not good. He taped it. What happened.”  
  
Mycroft didn’t look the least bit surprised. “I take it that you’ve seen it, then?” he asked, tone thoroughly neutral.  
  
John swallowed. “It was the only way I could convince Sherlock not to watch it.”  
  
“Then you did the right thing,” Mycroft replied, opening the envelope and letting the contents fall onto the desk. He read the note, then rubbed his face with both hands. “Is this the only message?”  
  
“The only written one,” John replied. “He said some other things on the video, but--”  
  
“What sorts of things?” Mycroft interrupted.  
  
John shifted uncomfortably. “Just more taunting,” he replied. He cleared his throat. “Most of the tape was of you, actually.”  
  
Mycroft looked up sharply. “Me?”  
  
“Yeah,” John said, wishing that Mycroft were as unsurprised about this as he had been about the other part of the tape. “You... with other men.”  
  
Mycroft looked almost spooked now. He stood, walking silently over to a cabinet on the far wall and pulling the doors open to reveal a television. He turned it on and put the tape in the VCR, the sound of the news fading away as the tape began to play.  
  
John started to move toward the door. “Listen, I can go--”  
  
“Stay,” Mycroft said. “You’ve already seen it, so there’s no point in you leaving.”  
  
“Right,” John replied. He didn’t agree with Mycroft in the slightest, but he remained where he was.  
  
For one long, very uncomfortable minute, he was horribly convinced that Mycroft was going to watch the whole tape with him in the room. Fortunately, after Moriarty gave his introduction, Mycroft fast-forwarded through the bit of the tape with him and Sherlock on it, stopping only at Moriarty’s second appearance. He fast-forwarded through the rest of the tape after that, looking more and more disturbed as each new scene appeared.  
  
John spent most of the time staring at a nearby wall, periodically glancing over to see how Mycroft was doing.  
  
Mycroft stood there for a long moment after the tape stopped, staring at the screen. He then took the tape from the VCR and returned to his desk. He took out his phone and tapped several buttons, then held it up to his ear.  
  
“Mycroft Holmes,” he began, then paused for a moment, listening. “I need several of your people--” He stopped, frowning. “Yes, I do have my own security team,” he continued. “Actually, I need them detained for questioning... Yes, _all_ of them,” Mycroft said, his voice suddenly turning harsh. “And I need records of all personnel who have worked for me at any point in the last seven years.” His voice regained its usual pleasantness. “Thank you.”  
  
He put his phone back in his pocket, then buried his face in his hands.  
  
John stood quietly, not knowing if he should stay or go. After a minute or so, he asked: “Did the tape really go back seven years?”  
  
Mycroft lowered his hands. “Five, actually. Most of it is more recent, however.”  
  
“Oh.” John didn’t know what else to say.  
  
“Are the tape and the note truly all that Moriarty sent to Sherlock?” Mycroft asked.  
  
“Yes,” John replied.  
  
“There were no threats, no demands?”  
  
“Nothing more than what you’ve seen,” John replied.  
  
Mycroft let out a breath in relief. "How is Sherlock?"  
  
The question blind-sided John far worse than it should have. The horrible conversation he’d had with Sherlock earlier was immediately dragged to the front of his mind. He struggled to find something to say, realizing that even a complete idiot wouldn’t believe ‘He’s fine’ for a single moment. “He's... he’s as well as can be expected.”  
  
Mycroft sat up straight, looking at him closely. “Something is wrong. What is it?”  
  
John was reminded of Sherlock’s insistence that Mycroft would simply _know_ about his fantasies if he saw him. “Isn’t it obvious?” John asked, gesturing at the tape.  
  
Mycroft frowned at him. “No,” he replied. “There’s something else.”  
  
“There’s nothing--”  
  
“John.”  
  
John realized that Mycroft wasn’t going to give up until he had some kind of answer. He wouldn’t have given away what Sherlock had confessed to him even under threat of torture, but he knew he had to say _something_ to satisfy Mycroft’s concern. “He still feels guilty about what happened. He thinks he... owes you.”  
  
Mycroft lowered his head. “Sherlock always has hated being indebted to me.”  
  
John felt anger rising inside of him. “You don't really consider him--!”  
  
Mycroft held up a hand. “No, of course not,” he replied, giving John an irritated look. “I’m merely unsurprised that he does. He'll continue to avoid me until he's thought of a way to ‘repay’ me.”  
  
John licked his bottom lip before speaking. “That’s the thing... He doesn't believe there _is_ a way to repay you. He's afraid you'll hold it over him forever.”  
  
Mycroft closed his eyes, not saying anything.  
  
John immediately regretted what he’d said. “I’ve been trying to convince him otherwise, but...”  
  
“But he’s Sherlock,” Mycroft finished, opening his eyes. “I’m sure you’re doing your best.” He gave John a grim smile. “Perhaps Sherlock will change his mind on his own.”  
  
“...Maybe.” John didn’t think for a moment that Mycroft believed what he was saying, but he wasn’t about to contradict him.  
  
“I will take care of this,” Mycroft said, tapping a finger against the tape. “If Moriarty sends anything else, come to me immediately.”  
  
Recognizing a dismissal when he heard one, John made his way back to the flat.  
  
“What did Mycroft say?” Sherlock asked when he returned, not looking up from the laptop.  
  
“He said he’s taking care of it,” John answered.  
  
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Of course he said that,” he replied. “What _else_ did he say?”  
  
“Not much. Some of the video on the tape went back five years.” John paused, expecting some kind of reaction from Sherlock, but there wasn’t one. “He seemed to suspect someone on his security team.”  
  
“Obviously. It wouldn’t have been possible without help from a member of his security team. He’s probably had suspicions for some time.”  
  
John frowned. “Why?”  
  
Sherlock looked up at him. “Moriarty shouldn’t have been able to take him in the first place.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Sherlock returned to typing away on the laptop. Not in the mood to demand it back from him just then, John went to the kitchen to get something to eat.  
  
For the next few weeks, they both behaved as though nothing had happened. Neither of them spoke of the tape or Mycroft. John spent the entire time waiting for Moriarty to make his next move. He had no idea what that move might be, but he’d given up on the possibility of Moriarty spontaneously deciding to leave Sherlock alone.  
  
So, when John came home from a date one evening to find the sitting room completely trashed, papers ripped apart and furniture upside down, he immediately assumed the absolute worst. “Sherlock?” he called.  
  
There was no response.  
  
John ran to check Sherlock’s room anyway, shoulders sagging in relief when he saw Sherlock lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “What happened?”  
  
Sherlock slowly turned his face towards John. “What do you mean?”  
  
“In the sitting room,” John replied, waving an arm in that direction. “Did someone break in?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock replied, returning his gaze to the ceiling.  
  
“Well, what did happen, then?” John asked, though he had a fairly good idea by now. What he didn’t know was _why_.  
  
Sherlock said nothing for a long moment, before eventually replying: “Nothing.”  
  
“Did Moriarty--”  
  
“No,” Sherlock said quickly.  
  
John glanced around the room, looking for a tape or a photo or a note, but there was nothing obviously out of place. He walked back to the sitting room.  
  
Doing an immediate check for photos or notes was impossible given the state of the room, but John did check the VCR for a tape. There wasn’t one, but both the VCR and the television were completely destroyed, hinting that there may have been one previously.  
  
John cleared up all the papers and righted the furniture, but found nothing that shouldn’t have been there. He then returned to Sherlock’s room, opening his drawers and rifling through his things.  
  
“John, what are you doing?”  
  
“Looking for whatever Moriarty sent you,” John replied.  
  
Sherlock scowled. “He didn’t send me anything.”  
  
“Then why is the sitting room in pieces?”  
  
“I was bored.”  
  
“I don’t believe you,” John replied, not stopping for a moment.  
  
“You aren’t going to find anything,” Sherlock told him.  
  
In the end, Sherlock was right. While John found any number of things that Sherlock most certainly should not have had in his possession, none of them seemed to have come from Moriarty. He did a cursory search of the rest of the flat, but gave up after he failed to find anything.  
  
The next day, Sherlock vanished for several hours without explanation. Late in the afternoon Lestrade called John to tell him they had a case.  
  
“Have you called Sherlock?” John asked, putting on his coat.  
  
“He’s not answering his phone,” Lestrade replied. “I was hoping _you_ would get him for me.”  
  
John tried both calling and texting Sherlock, but got no response. He was about to call Mycroft when he heard the door open downstairs. He turned to find Sherlock storming up the stairs, body tense, eyes wild, and face tinged with red.  
  
“Where have you been?” John asked. “We have a--”  
  
Sherlock walked right past John without looking at him, entering his room and closing the door behind him.  
  
“--case.”  
  
John walked over to the door and knocked several times. He tried pushing it open, but it was locked. He stood for several minutes, debating whether Sherlock’s unusual behavior over the past day or so warranted any further action. For all he knew, Sherlock was just in one of his moods, and it was as simple as that.  
  
In the end, Sherlock opened the door before John was forced to make a decision.  
  
Sherlock looked only slightly calmer than he had when he’d walked into the flat. “We have a case,” he said, pushing John toward the stairs.  
  
Sherlock refused to address the issue of where he’d been all day. Over the next month, he disappeared several more times without any explanation, twice in the middle of an ongoing investigation. He looked worse and worse every time he returned, though he never seemed to have any visible injuries.  
  
John grew more concerned each time it happened, but Sherlock wouldn’t tell him anything. Most of the time, Sherlock behaved as though he hadn’t been gone at all.  
  
And then one day, he did something that John hadn’t been expecting at all.  
  
They had been working a case for one of their clients, when Sherlock had deduced that it was related to a foiled terrorist attack that had been mentioned in the news a few weeks earlier. After explaining the whole convoluted mess to John in detail, he’d ended with: “Mycroft will want to know about this.”  
  
John blinked at him, surprised to hear him mention Mycroft’s name so casually. “Er. Right. Do you want me to call him?” he asked, pulling out his phone.  
  
“No,” Sherlock replied, getting to his feet. “We'll talk to him in person.”  
  
John stared at him, wondering if he’d heard correctly. “You're ready to see him?”  
  
Sherlock shrugged, but didn’t look him in the eye. “There's no reason to put it off any longer.”  
  
John was suspicious of the sudden change, to say the least, but he didn’t want to risk accidentally talking Sherlock out of it by pressing too much. He smiled, trying to look encouraging. “Good. Great,” he replied. “Let’s... go, then.”  
  
Mycroft was on his feet the moment they entered his office, staring at Sherlock in utter shock. “Sherlock?”  
  
“Mycroft,” Sherlock replied. His voice was very close to the irritated tone he usually took with Mycroft, but not entirely there.  
  
John stood to the side, feeling awkward.  
  
Mycroft blinked his eyes rapidly, then smiled, hurrying over to them. He reached out a hand toward Sherlock, then hesitated, hand hovering just above Sherlock’s shoulder. He swallowed, then gave Sherlock a questioning glance.  
  
“I’m not going to _break_ if you touch me, Mycroft,” Sherlock said shortly, looking away immediately after he said it.  
  
Mycroft exhaled sharply. “No. No, of course you won’t,” he replied, setting his hand down on Sherlock’s shoulder.  
  
Sherlock visibly tensed for a moment, then relaxed.  
  
Mycroft put his other hand on Sherlock’s other shoulder, rubbing gently. He looked at Sherlock for a long moment, then leaned forward just a small amount, as though about to give Sherlock a hug. However, he stopped just short of committing to the action, dropping his hands and taking a step back.  
  
“I’m glad you came, Sherlock,” he said. “Very glad.”  
  
“I’m not here to visit,” Sherlock replied. “I have information you need.”  
  
Mycroft closed his eyes, making a sound somewhere between a quiet laugh and a sigh. “Yes. Of course,” he replied, returning to his desk and gesturing to chairs in front of it.  
  
John and Sherlock sat down. Sherlock launched into a detailed explanation of the case and its connection to the terrorist incident. Mycroft made a few notes on a piece of paper, but for the most part just sat and listened attentively.  
  
“And that’s it.”  
  
“I’ll send the information down the proper channels,” Mycroft replied. “Thank you, Sherlock. And you, too, John.”  
  
Sherlock looked ready to say something for a moment, but he kept his mouth firmly closed, eyes focused on Mycroft’s desk.  
  
“You’re, um, welcome,” John replied for the both of them.  
  
There was a short, awkward silence.  
  
Sherlock stood first. “We should be going.”  
  
John couldn’t miss the look of disappointment that crossed Mycroft’s face, however quickly it disappeared. “Are you sure?” he asked, scrambling to think of some kind of pretext that might keep them there. “There might be something more we can--”  
  
“Mycroft can take of it,” Sherlock replied, already on his way out the door.  
  
“I’m sorry,” John told Mycroft.  
  
“Don’t be,” Mycroft said. “That went as well as could reasonably be hoped for.” He frowned. “What caused Sherlock to change his mind about seeing me?”  
  
John held up his hands. “Your guess is as good as mine.”  
  
Mycroft’s frown deepened.  
  
John left Mycroft’s office in a hurry, imagining that he would have to run just to catch up to Sherlock. Instead, he found Sherlock waiting for him just outside the building.  
  
“What were you talking about?” Sherlock demanded.  
  
“Nothing,” John replied. “Mycroft wanted to know what made you willing to see him again.”  
  
Sherlock’s eyes darted up and down John’s face. “What did you tell him?”  
  
“That I didn’t know,” John answered. “Because I don’t. What _did_ make you willing to see him again?”  
  
Sherlock shrugged. "I thought you wanted me to see him."  
  
"I did. I do. But--"  
  
"Then it should be good enough that I'm doing it," Sherlock replied, walking briskly down the street.  
  
John hurried after him. He felt like he was missing something terribly important, but he had no idea what it might be.


	6. Chapter 6

John and Sherlock saw Mycroft several more times over the next few weeks. None of the meetings were any less awkward than the first one had been. Sherlock alternated between openly antagonizing the man and practically ignoring his presence in his own office, sometimes almost within the same breath, while Mycroft in large part remained overly polite to the both of them. He visibly stopped himself from snapping back at Sherlock every time one of his insults went over line.  
  
If he had deduced Sherlock’s secret thoughts, as Sherlock had feared, he gave no outward sign of it.  
  
Sherlock continued to vanish every few days, and he also continued to pretend that nothing was going on. John attempted to follow him twice, but Sherlock eluded him within minutes of leaving the flat.  
  
John was certain Sherlock had noticed him and evaded him on purpose, but Sherlock never said anything about John’s attempts to follow him.  
  
Frankly, he found that far worse than an argument about it would have been. He didn’t confront Sherlock about the issue, however.  
  
Sherlock’s behavior remained relatively consistent until one cold day in early February, when John returned to the flat to find Sherlock coming down the stairs from his room. He was still wearing his heavy coat, scarf, and shoes, and his face was still pinkish from the chill. “What were you doing in my room?” John asked.  
  
“I was looking for you,” Sherlock replied. “We’re out of milk.”  
  
“I know,” John replied. “I just got some.” He held up the bag he was carrying.  
  
“Yes, I see that,” Sherlock replied. “Good.” He brushed right past John, heading back to his own room without another word.  
  
John debated whether or not to go after him and argue the point. Sherlock had never once bothered to go up to his room because they were out of milk. Yelled or texted for him to get milk, yes. Gone to his room to tell him to get milk, no.  
  
And that wasn’t even getting into the obvious fact that Sherlock had just come in from outside.  
  
John put milk and bread away, then went up to his room to see what Sherlock had actually been doing.  
  
There were no obvious signs that his room had been tampered with. He checked for his gun first, but found it secure in its hiding place. He checked the DVD copy of the tape next, but it was also right where he’d left it, a thin layer of dust coating the top. Further investigation revealed none of his things to be missing or out of place. If Sherlock had taken something, he’d put it back exactly where it had been once he was done with it.  
  
John was close to believing that Sherlock must have been interrupted before he could accomplish whatever he had intended to do. He couldn’t have been in the room long, after all. John probably would have left it at that, had he not noticed that his bed wasn’t in quite the same place it was normally.  
  
He knelt down on the floor. There was nothing under the bed, but there were small, barely visible scratch marks on the floor next to the legs of the bed.  
  
John gave the bed a shove, pushing it until the leg reached the end of the marks. He knelt there for a moment, half-expecting something to happen. When nothing did, he looked at the bit of floor that had been revealed by the movement of the bed.  
  
It seemed perfectly normal. There was nothing strange about the floorboards themselves, scratches aside. It was on the spot of wall that had been behind the bed that John found something strange.  
  
There were two long cracks in the baseboard, roughly an arm’s length apart. When John pulled on that section, it came free fairly easily, revealing a long, narrow hole. Inside were three DVDs in paper sleeves, as well as a single video tape.  
  
John pulled everything out of the hole.  
  
The tape was unlabeled, giving no obvious clue to its contents. John knew when Sherlock must have received it, and it seemed obvious that it had to be another message from Moriarty. Beyond that, he had no idea. If they’d had a functional VCR in the flat, he would have watched it immediately, but neither he nor Sherlock had bothered to replace the old one after Sherlock had broken it.  
  
John turned his attention to the DVDs. The paper sleeves ranged from crisp and clean to mildly dirty to filthy and rumpled, making it fairly easy to tell how old the DVDs were relative to each other. The oldest was completely unlabeled; the middle and newest were labeled “Your Favorites” and “My Favorites” respectively.  
  
John recognized the handwriting from the notes Moriarty had sent several months earlier -- not that he would have ever suspected anyone else.  
  
John stared at the collection of objects in front of him for a moment, angry at himself for missing something that had been hidden in his own room the whole time. John knew that Sherlock must have chosen that tactic precisely because he knew John would never search his own room, but the knowledge wasn’t especially comforting.  
  
Realizing that sitting around wasn’t getting him anywhere, John stood, setting the tape and DVDs on his desk. He went downstairs to grab his laptop, noting with a frown that Sherlock was still closed off in his room.  
  
John returned to his own room, locking the door before sitting down at his desk. Not really looking forward to watching any of the DVDs, he decided to do it in order, starting with the oldest.  
  
He popped the unlabeled DVD into his laptop. He was unsurprised to find that the DVD contained a video file.  
  
He was far more surprised by the fact that said file was the one he’d copied from the original tape Sherlock had received from Moriarty a few months earlier.  
  
John grimaced, realizing that Sherlock must have duplicated the DVD almost immediately after he’d made it, while he’d been out taking the tape to Mycroft. Sherlock had had access to the video the whole time, even as the other DVD gathered dust in its hiding place.  
  
If the worn, crumpled paper sleeve was any indication, he’d definitely taken advantage of this access.  
  
John sighed, not entirely wanting to contemplate why Sherlock had felt the need to watch the video repeatedly. The few possible reasons he’d thought of all made his stomach twist. He skipped through the rest of the video to make sure there was truly nothing new, then took out the DVD.  
  
He replaced it with the one labeled ‘Your favorites’. There were a few dozen files on this one. Based on the creation dates of the files, the DVD had been created a little over a month earlier.  
  
The file names consisted of strange taunts, such as ‘The one that made you squirm’, ‘The one that made you twitch‘, and ominously, ‘The one that broke you’.  
  
John sucked in a breath, then clicked on that one first.  
  
He was almost relieved when it turned out to be more illicit video of Mycroft, but only almost.  
  
Mycroft was fully clothed in this one, at least. The younger man draped over his lap was completely naked, however, and currently being ‘punished’ for some ill-defined transgression. Hearing Mycroft scold the man to a background of slapping noises almost made John to mute the video, but he turned the volume down instead.  
  
The ‘punishment’ went on for a few minutes before being followed up with rough sex, culminating in the man being ‘forgiven’ and brought off to a string of praises just before the video ended.  
  
John felt his stomach sink as he watched it. Not so much because of the content itself -- at this point, he’d seen enough video of Mycroft having sex for there to be a limit to how much it could shock him, even with the voyeurism aspect -- but because he was certain Sherlock had seen it. Seen it and apparently been ‘broken’ by it, whatever that meant.  
  
It couldn’t have done much to help Sherlock’s unwanted fantasies, that much was certain.  
  
John briefly checked each of the other files on the DVD, but there wasn’t anything notable. Aside from a few videos involving Mycroft performing bondage on the same man from the punishment video, there wasn’t much to distinguish the videos on the DVD from those on the first tape Moriarty had sent.  
  
John put the DVD back in its sleeve, then picked up the final DVD -- ‘My Favorites’. The seal on the sleeve was unopened; if he took the disc out to watch it, there would be no hiding the fact that he’d done it.  
  
But then, he’d never truly intended to hide that fact for long anyway.  
  
John ripped the top of the sleeve open, shoving the DVD into the drive.  
  
At this point, he was expecting yet more obsessive videos of Mycroft, but the file names didn’t fit the theory. ‘I love seeing you break’, ‘You were made to be fucked’, ‘You’re kinkier than I realized’ -- the more John read, the more disturbed he became.  
  
His mind couldn’t help but take what he was reading and combine it with Sherlock’s strange absences, coming up with a horrifying picture that he desperately hoped wasn’t true.  
  
Seeing no point in dragging things out, John clicked on the file whose name disturbed him the most: ‘I love seeing you break’.  
  
His heart sank when Sherlock appeared on screen, naked, aroused, and very obviously unhappy about it.  
  
He was sitting on the edge of a bed in what looked like a hotel room, eyes focused on a point just below the camera. His breathing was erratic, his body almost completely flushed, and his hands gripping the edge of the mattress.  
  
It wasn’t until John heard the slightly echoed sound of Mycroft’s scolding from off screen that he completely understood what was going on.  
  
On screen, Sherlock sucked in a breath when it began, visibly struggling not to squirm.  
  
There was a snicker from somewhere off screen. “Oh, you must really like this one,” Moriarty’s voice declared. “I don’t think you’ll be able to hold out much longer, do you?”  
  
“Shut up!” Sherlock replied, voice low and rough. He continued to stare at the same point in front of him for several moments before suddenly squeezing his eyes shut. He bit his lip, his hands leaving the edge of the bed to grip his knees.  
  
Moriarty tsked at him. “Eyes open. You know the rules.”  
  
Sherlock made no comment, but did as instructed, once again fixing his eyes on the point in front of him, body tense and strained. He began to swallow compulsively when the background noise went from scolding and smacking to scolding and fucking. His fingers dug so hard into his knees that the reddened skin turned completely white.  
  
For a long moment, it looked as though Sherlock would simply stay that way indefinitely, but when the scolding ended with a pleased “good boy” from Mycroft, Sherlock made a choked sound, hips jerking up off of the bed. He was frantically fisting his cock within seconds, and coming not long after.  
  
He sat there panting afterward. His eyes were glazed, and for a moment John doubted that he even knew where he was.  
  
Sherlock’s eyes eventually refocused, a look of intense shame covering his face for a moment before quickly being replaced with disgust as he tried to wipe the mess off of his stomach.  
  
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to help yourself,” Moriarty said cheerfully.  
  
Sherlock tensed, but didn’t say anything.  
  
The video stopped there.  
  
John let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.  
  
Sherlock’s strange behavior for the past few months was partially explained, but only partially. John still had no idea _why_ Sherlock was doing what Moriarty asked of him, seemingly against his own will. If John’s assumptions were correct, Sherlock was regularly going to Moriarty on his own, no guns or kidnapping involved.  
  
John knew it had to be some other method of coercion, though he wasn’t sure what.  
  
John debated with himself about whether he should even watch the other videos, feeling like he was already horrifically violating Sherlock’s privacy in the worst possible way. It had been one thing when Sherlock asked him to watch the tape, but in this case Sherlock had taken pains to hide the video from him.  
  
On the other hand, Sherlock had taken pains to hide it in _John’s room_. And John knew he’d already violated Mycroft’s privacy at least as much by watching the other videos, even if it hadn’t felt nearly as sickening.  
  
In the end, he decided to at least look at the rest, if only because he might need to know what was there when he talked to Sherlock.  
  
John didn’t fully watch every video, instead skipping through each one just enough to see what had happened.  
  
Unfortunately, most were far worse than the one he’d first watched. The things Moriarty ordered Sherlock to do ranged from performing simple, yet humiliating acts on himself to performing them on other men to allowing other men to fuck him. The hotel and the man, when there was one, changed each time, with none appearing twice in the roughly two dozen videos.  
  
Moriarty never appeared on camera in any of the videos, though his off screen taunts were a continuous thread through all of them. Not single one ended without Sherlock having an orgasm, and Moriarty mocked him for it every single time.  
  
By the time he’d gone through all of them, John’s horror had mostly dulled, replaced by the familiar urge to find Moriarty and beat him to death with his bare hands.  
  
Realizing that he wasn’t going to have that opportunity any time soon, John tried to come up with another action plan.  
  
The only thing he hadn’t seen was the tape. If he wanted to watch it, he would need to go out and find a VCR to do it on. It would take time to accomplish, and there was a strong risk of Sherlock going up to his room to check on the hiding place while he was gone. He’d know immediately that John had found it, and it was impossible to predict what he'd do after this realization.  
  
As much as John was dreading having to talk to Sherlock about what he’d discovered, it didn’t seem like a good idea to put it off any longer.


	7. Chapter 7

After securing the tape and DVDs in their hiding place, John went downstairs.  
  
He was somewhat relieved to see Sherlock lying on the sofa, aimlessly tossing a rubber ball up into the air.  
  
John sat down in one of the chairs, then looked at Sherlock for a moment before looking away again. He licked his lower lip, trying to figure out what to say.  
  
Sherlock caught the ball, then abruptly sat up straight, eyes darting all over John’s body before settling on his hands. “You found them,” he said, voice completely toneless.  
  
John looked down at his own hands, noticing the small smudges of dirt that had probably given him away. “Yes,” he replied, glancing over at Sherlock again.  
  
Sherlock’s face was unreadable. “You watched them.”  
  
“I watched the DVDs, yes.” John cleared his throat. “You’ve watched them, too. Been watching them, I mean.”  
  
Sherlock’s eyes flickered downward, focusing on the ball in his hand. “All but the most recent, yes.”  
  
John twisted his mouth for a moment before replying. “Why?” he asked bluntly.  
  
Sherlock shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. “Why do you think?”  
  
“I don’t know,” John replied. “No... I know why you would watch the second one. I don’t know why you would watch-- the other one.”  
  
“I needed to see it,” Sherlock replied.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I needed to know whether my memory of the event was accurate.”  
  
John blinked. He wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that answer, but it was at least less unsettling than any of the possible explanations he’d come up with. “Was it?” he asked carefully.  
  
Sherlock was silent for a long moment. “I was wrong about the length of time. It took a shorter period of time than I remembered.”  
  
“That’s not surprising,” John replied. “You can’t expect someone to perceive time accurately in a situation like that.”  
  
Sherlock made a face as though thinking that _he_ was no _someone_ to be allowed such weaknesses of perception, but made no retort to John’s comment. “I saw Mycroft’s face,” he said instead. “I didn’t look at him clearly while it was happening.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before continuing. “He was less disgusted with me than I remembered him being.”  
  
“He wasn’t disgusted with _you_ at all,” John hastened to assure him. “He was concerned about you.”  
  
“I never doubted his _concern_ for me,” Sherlock replied irritably. “His _concern_ just made it worse.”  
  
John sighed. “If you only wanted to check your memory of the event, why did you watch it more than once?”  
  
Sherlock’s leg shifted to one side, then back again. “I usually skipped over that part,” he replied, averting his eyes. “It was the other section of the video I was interested in.”  
  
“Right,” John replied, choosing not to delve too far into what Sherlock might mean by ‘usually’.  
  
There was a short, awkward pause.  
  
Sherlock was the one to speak first. “You saw the last DVD.”  
  
John cleared his throat. “Yes. I... I saw it.”  
  
Sherlock seemed to shrink in on himself. “What was on it?”  
  
John stared at him. “You don’t know?”  
  
“I have a general idea, but I don’t know the specifics,” Sherlock replied. “I only received it today.”  
  
“You mean, Moriarty only gave it to you today,” John clarified.  
  
Sherlock went completely stiff. “Yes.”  
  
It took John a moment to find the words. “It was of you. Doing... what Moriarty ordered you to do.”  
  
Sherlock winced. His expression was unhappy, but not the least bit surprised.  
  
“Why?” John asked, struggling to keep his tone as neutral as possible. “ _Why_ were you doing what he ordered you to do?”  
  
Sherlock started, staring at John as though he’d suddenly realized something. “You haven’t seen the tape.”  
  
“No,” John replied. “We don’t have anything to play it on.”  
  
Sherlock gritted his teeth. “He threatened to upload the video of me... _fucking_ Mycroft to the Internet if I didn’t meet his demands.”  
  
John’s eyes widened in surprise, though the threat seemed obvious now that he’d heard it. In fact, Moriarty had all but telegraphed it in advance just by sending them the original tape. “Did you know he was recording you this time?”  
  
Sherlock squeezed the rubber ball hard. “Yes. He said as much.”  
  
“He has even more to blackmail you with than he did before,” John pointed out.  
  
Sherlock laughed harshly. “He has a video of me _fucking Mycroft_. Nothing else he’s had me do could possibly compare. I doubt it ever will.”  
  
“Ever... You can’t still be thinking of going back!” John exclaimed, though he realized the futility of his argument even as he said it.  
  
“I don’t have any choice,” Sherlock replied, hitting the ball down on the table. “It’s not as difficult as the first time was. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”  
  
“I saw it,” John said. “I saw most of it. You weren’t... You aren’t going to convince me that it’s nothing.”  
  
Sherlock crossed his arms. “I don’t know what Moriarty included on the disc, but I can’t imagine he would have left out any video he had of me _enjoying_ myself.”  
  
“There wasn’t any video of you enjoying yourself. Just-- just of you having physical responses.”  
  
Sherlock made a short, bitter sound that could just barely count as a laugh. “Please. He’s been very careful to ensure that I enjoy myself,” he replied. “He gloats about it endlessly.”  
  
“You can’t listen to him. Just because he forced you to perform a physical act--”  
  
“He hasn’t forced me to perform any physical acts,” Sherlock replied quietly.  
  
“He’s blackmailing you,” John said, holding up his hands.  
  
“Yes, but--” Sherlock covered his face with one hand for a moment, then dropped it. “He doesn’t simply order me to do the things he wants. What I’m required to do is dependent on how I respond. If I’d had better control of myself, I wouldn’t have had to do anything in the first place.”  
  
John frowned. “What do you mean?”  
  
“At the first few meetings, the only thing I was required to do was watch what he showed me,” Sherlock replied, absently rolling the ball back and forth on the table. “All I needed to do was sit on the bed and pay attention until he allowed me to leave. However, if I did anything... _active_ while watching any of the videos, he could then require me to do other things.”  
  
John bit his lip, remembering Moriarty's glee at seeing Sherlock give in. “You don’t know that he wouldn’t have required you to do it anyway.”  
  
“He didn’t need to,” Sherlock replied. “I was able to make it through three meetings without doing anything.” He closed his eyes. “But during the fourth meeting he showed me a new video, and I...” He swallowed. “I gave in.”  
  
“The video of Mycroft... um...” John didn’t really want to describe what he’d seen in the video out loud, so he scrambled to find some neutral aspect to distinguish it from the others. “Fully dressed?”  
  
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Yes, John. The one of Mycroft _fully dressed_.” He frowned. “It was after a group of other videos. I was already too stimulated. I couldn’t... I did exactly what he wanted me to do.” He laughed softly. “And I kept doing what he wanted me to do. Every single time after that one.” He shuddered. “No matter what he requires me to do, I invariably get off on it.”  
  
“That’s... it’s not _you_ ,” John told him. “He’s using a purely physical response to manipulate you.”  
  
“It was more than physical,” Sherlock replied. “I responded to the videos.”  
  
“It’s perfectly normal to get turned on by the sight of other people having sex,” John said. “You have to know that.”  
  
“And to the sight of one’s own sibling having sex?”  
  
The thought of having to watch Harry have sex popped into John’s mind, and he felt a wave of revulsion wash over him at the idea. He tried not to let it show. “It’s not unheard of,” he answered weakly.  
  
Sherlock made an irritated noise. “Even if that were true -- which I know it isn’t -- if it were purely physical, then I wouldn’t have been more affected by some videos than others,” Sherlock replied. “And I wouldn’t have had such a strong reaction to--” He stopped, pressing his lips together.  
  
“To what?” John asked, mentally running over the things he’d seen in the videos. He remembered Sherlock having what could be called a strong reaction to any number of things, but none stood out more than the rest.  
  
Sherlock squirmed, then shifted toward the back of the sofa. “To what happened today,” he replied eventually. “It wouldn’t have been on the DVD.”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
Sherlock spun the ball in his hand several times before responding. “He had me act out that video,” he said, the words rushing out of his mouth. “With a man dressed as Mycroft. While the audio played.”  
  
“The audio... of Mycroft?” John asked, barely able to register what he was hearing.  
  
“Obviously, the audio of Mycroft,” Sherlock answered. He paused, then continued on as though reciting the facts of some particularly uninteresting case that didn’t concern him in the slightest. “The man was precisely the same height and weight as Mycroft, and in general of the same level of fitness. His hands were the same size, and clearly well-cared for. He wore the same clothing and shoes as Mycroft did in the video. He smelled of Mycroft’s soap.”  
  
John remained quiet, knowing not to interrupt Sherlock when he was listing what he considered to be important details.  
  
“His hair was the same color and style. His...” Sherlock fumbled for the first time. “He was physically comparable in almost all respects. His face was dissimilar, and there were other small differences, but he was an almost perfect substitute for Mycroft.”  
  
John waited a moment to make sure Sherlock didn’t have anything else to say. “That’s... That must have been...” John had no idea what it was, but he eventually settled on “...difficult.”  
  
Sherlock grimaced for a moment, then went blank. “It wasn’t difficult.”  
  
John bit his lip. “What was it, then?” he asked, uncertain whether or not to assume Sherlock’s assessment of his own feelings was accurate in this case.  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“You don’t know?”  
  
“It was... confusing,” Sherlock replied, lips twisting around the word ‘confusing’ as though it left a horrible taste in his mouth. “Toward the end, I forgot where I was.”  
  
John looked at him in alarm. “Completely forgot?”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock answered, digging his fingers into his trousers. “I didn’t return to my senses until it was over.” He shuddered.  
  
John tried to come up with some appropriate words of comfort, but his mind was a complete blank. He had no idea what Sherlock wanted or needed to hear, and he quickly realized that he might never know. He ended up focusing on a more practical course of action. “When’s the next meeting?”  
  
Sherlock looked over at him. “A week from today.”  
  
“Where?” John asked.  
  
Sherlock closed his eyes. “John.”  
  
“Where?” John repeated.  
  
“Killing him won’t help,” Sherlock said. “He’s made arrangements for the video to be automatically distributed upon his death.”  
  
“There has to be something we can do,” John replied, getting to his feet. “You can’t just...”  
  
Sherlock leaned forward, folding his hands in front of his chin. “I’ll think of something eventually.”  
  
“And until then?”  
  
Sherlock glanced up at him for a moment, then focused on the opposite wall. “I do as he demands.”  
  
John took several steps away, then turned back, unable to leave things where they were. “Look, no one would... it’s obvious you were being forced in that video. Even if he muted the audio, no one would think--”  
  
Sherlock glared at the wall. “They would think whatever they want to think,” he said. His shoulders slumped for just a second before straightening back up again. “Not that I care what anyone thinks.”  
  
John had heard Sherlock express that sentiment countless times before, but in this case he didn’t believe it for a second. “Then why are you letting Moriarty blackmail you?”  
  
“Mycroft would care.”  
  
“You’re doing this entirely for Mycroft?” John asked. “This... this isn’t because you still think you owe him, is it? Because--”  
  
“No, I don’t think owe him,” Sherlock replied. Just when John was started to relax, he added: “This makes up for it.”  
  
“It doesn’t--” John began, fully intending to protest Sherlock’s entire line of reasoning. However, he quickly realized there was a serious risk of talking Sherlock out of believing his ‘debt’ was fulfilled without convincing him there was no debt to begin with, so he held his tongue. “You’ve more than made up for it at this point,” he said instead. “What happened with Mycroft was one incident. You’ve endured Moriarty for months.”  
  
“If I stop now, and Moriarty releases the video, then it will all have been pointless.”  
  
John sucked in a breath. “I think Mycroft would rather see the video released than have you--”  
  
“I know he would,” Sherlock interrupted. “I also know that he would prefer offering himself as a replacement to either of those possibilities. And that Moriarty would accept.”  
  
“How could you know Moriarty would accept?” John asked.  
  
“He’s said he would.”  
  
“Oh.” John felt the strength to argue leaving him.  
  
The silence stretched out between them.  
  
“You won’t tell Mycroft,” Sherlock stated.  
  
John hesitated, not entirely sure that was a promise he should be making.  
  
“John.”  
  
John sighed. “I won’t tell Mycroft.”  
  
John spent the next week obsessing over the situation. They didn't have a case in that time, so he devoted most of his time and energy trying to find something, anything that could be used to get Sherlock free of Moriarty. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any way of doing it that wouldn’t also result in the video being released to the public.  
  
And while Sherlock continued to claim he didn’t care about others seeing the video beyond the effect it would have on Mycroft, John still doubted it was actually true.  
  
All the same, when the day of the next meeting arrived, John made one last attempt to convince Sherlock not to go. Or to bring him with when he went.  
  
“You know that’s not possible,” Sherlock replied, leaving without further argument.  
  
John very nearly followed him anyway.  
  
In the end, however, he knew he couldn’t risk taking an action that might result in Moriarty releasing the video unless Sherlock agreed to it beforehand. So, he sat down on the sofa, fully prepared to sit there however many hours until Sherlock came home. He took out his laptop and make a half-hearted effort to work on his blog, mindlessly clearing a backlog of spam comments from the queue.  
  
John was somewhat surprised to hear the downstairs door open only an hour or so after Sherlock had left. At first, he half-assumed it was Mrs. Hudson, but the sound of the door opening was followed by quick, heavy footsteps on the stairs. “Sherlock?”  
  
John rushed over to the doorway, nearly tripping over a very frazzled-looking Mycroft when he reached the stairs. Mycroft clutched an umbrella in one hand and a large envelope in the other, hands squeezed tightly around each object.  
  
“I take it he’s not here, then?” Mycroft replied, a strong undercurrent of anxiety in his voice. He pushed John aside with his umbrella, marching into the sitting room before John could even respond. His eyes darted frantically around the room, as though he hoped to find Sherlock hiding under the coffee table.  
  
“No,” John answered, eying the envelope warily. “He, uh. He went out.”  
  
Mycroft spun back around, eyes narrowing. “Went where?” he demanded.  
  
“I don’t know,” John replied. It was technically true.  
  
Mycroft gave a small laugh. “He’s gone to see Moriarty, hasn’t he?”  
  
“I don’t--”  
  
“Lying to me right now wouldn’t be very wise,” Mycroft replied, voice soft and low. His mouth briefly contorted into something that was probably meant to be a smile, but would be better described as a baring of teeth. His eyes bored into John’s.  
  
John took a step back. He normally had no problem staring Mycroft down when the situation called for it, but in this case he couldn’t completely convince himself it was warranted. “Yes,” he replied. “I really don’t know where they are.”  
  
Mycroft ‘smiled’ at him again. “I see.” He sat down on in one of the chairs, then gestured for John to sit in the opposite chair.  
  
John did.  
  
“Now,” Mycroft began, “While we wait for Sherlock to return, you can explain to me _exactly_ why you allowed him to meet Moriarty, by himself, at an entirely unknown location.”  
  
John swallowed. “Right.”


	8. Chapter 8

  
The two men sat in silence for a long moment. John could feel Mycroft staring at him, waiting for his response.  
  
“Moriarty threatened to release the video of... you and Sherlock... to the Internet, if Sherlock didn’t do as he said.”  
  
“Yes,” Mycroft replied, tapping a finger against his umbrella. “I was already aware of that. I’m far more interested in why you allowed him to go through with it without stopping him.”  
  
“He doesn’t want anyone to see the video,” John said. “Surely... surely you can understand that.”  
  
“Yes, I do understand that,” Mycroft replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t try contacting me about this.”  
  
“He asked me not to,” John said, holding up his hands.  
  
“And your loyalty outweighs any possible concern for his safety or wellbeing?” Mycroft asked.  
  
“You know that’s not true,” John replied. “If I’d found out about it when it began, it might have been different, but--”  
  
“When did you find out?” Mycroft interrupted.  
  
“A week ago,” John replied. “This is the first time I’ve known where he was going.”  
  
Mycroft pressed his lips together. “How...” He stopped, taking a deep breath before continuing, voice quiet. “How long has he been going to Moriarty?”  
  
“A few months,” John replied.  
  
“ _Months_ ,” Mycroft repeated, whole body shuddering. He dropped the umbrella and envelope on the table and buried his face in his hands.  
  
John felt even more uncomfortable than before. He averted his eyes, glancing down at the envelope on the table. It was large, yellow, and crumpled, with a rectangular bulge in the middle the exact size and shape of a standard DVD case.  
  
He cleared his throat. “What did Moriarty send you?”  
  
Mycroft remained as he was for a short while longer, then dropped his hands down to his lap. “He sent me the evidence of one of their meetings.”  
  
“Only one?” John asked, surprised.  
  
Mycroft let out a breath. “One was quite enough,” he answered.  
  
John bit his lip. He couldn’t help but wonder which of the videos Moriarty had chosen to inflict on Mycroft, but it didn’t seem entirely appropriate to ask.  
  
Mycroft seemed to sense his curiosity, however. He sighed, then pushed the envelope over to John’s side of the table. “Go ahead and look, though I’d prefer it if you didn’t actually watch it.”  
  
“So would I,” John replied. He slid the case out of the envelope, squeezing it nearly hard enough to crack the plastic when he caught sight of the cover.  
  
The whole thing had been done up in the style of an actual porn movie. The front featured a lewd photo of Sherlock, naked, draped over the lap of a suited man who bore a striking resemblance to Mycroft. The title read ‘Baby Brother’s been a Bad Boy’.  
  
John took a moment to remember how to breathe before turning the case over to look at the back. There was a text blurb at the top, with four small photos beneath it. The first was a shot of Sherlock being hauled over the man’s lap, while the second showed him being slapped on the arse. His face was hidden in his arms, but there was a deep red flush still visibly spread over his neck and shoulders. The third showed him being fucked, eyes glazed over and far away, and the fourth had him sitting in the man’s lap, cradled in his arms in a sick parody of a warm embrace. His face was buried in the man’s shoulder, his hands clinging to the man’s shirt.  
  
The blurb at the top read:  
  
‘Big Brother’s had enough! Baby Brother gets the punishment he _really_ deserves, but can he take it?’  
  
There was also another short blurb at the bottom of the DVD, reading: ‘Coming Soon: Baby Brother in Bondage’.  
  
John felt his stomach churn. The whole thing felt worse than everything else he’d seen.  
  
When he’d watched the previous videos, even the horrifying video of the first assault, there had at least been an end to each event, a finishing point. Once the video had played through, it was gone. He could take the tape out of the VCR or close the file on the computer, and the horrible images would disappear.  
  
But these were static images, unchanging. Sherlock would continue being molested by the man in the photos no matter how long John stared at them.  
  
John shoved the DVD case back into the envelope and folded the edge several times to seal it, but didn’t feel any better afterwards. He wanted to burn the thing; he had to settle for throwing it violently down on the table.  
  
“Can I count on your cooperation in persuading Sherlock to break off his deal?” Mycroft asked.  
  
“I have tried, you know,” John replied. “I didn’t want him going back there any more than you do.”  
  
“Then we’re agreed.”  
  
John didn’t respond.  
  
They fell into silence, hardly even moving during the next several minutes.  
  
John eventually spoke first. “He’s not going to be happy that you’ve seen this,” he said, gesturing at the envelope.  
  
“Yes,” Mycroft replied irritably. “We’ve already established the lengths he’s gone to in order to keep this arrangement from me.”  
  
“No, I mean...” John paused, not sure how to phrase what he wanted to say without giving away anything Sherlock wouldn’t want him to give away. “I think it will bother him to know you’ve seen him... in a scenario involving you.”  
  
“Seen him respond to a scenario involving me, you mean?” Mycroft asked, smoothing his jacket.  
  
“Well. Yes.”  
  
Mycroft leaned back in his chair. “I doubt it will upset him as much as you imagine,” he replied. “I’m sure he already knows that I’m aware of his... fantasies.”  
  
“Fantasies?” John repeated. “You... you really know about them?”  
  
“Yes, I know he’s been thinking about me in a sexual context,” Mycroft replied, eyes drifting down to the table. “A particularly disturbing sexual context,” he added softly. “Though I suppose that’s to be expected.”  
  
“How could you possibly have known what he’s been thinking?” John asked, still not entirely able to believe Sherlock had been right in assuming Mycroft would inevitably figure it out.  
  
“It isn’t very difficult to tell when someone is having sexual thoughts,” Mycroft replied. “There are a number of small physical signs, even beyond those obvious to everyone. I merely took note of how he reacted and when, and the nature of the thoughts he’s been having became readily apparent.”  
  
“You could tell that he’s been having thoughts about you, but you couldn’t tell that he’s been running off to see Moriarty for the past few months?”  
  
Mycroft winced. “Moriarty has clearly been very careful to avoid injuring him, and Sherlock has more than enough practice concealing the physical signs of the things he does from me,” Mycroft replied. “It’s much more difficult to control an immediate, involuntary reaction than it is to hide evidence of a previous activity.”  
  
“You never said anything about it.”  
  
Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “And what precisely should I have said?”  
  
“I...” John lifted his hands, then let them fall back down on his knees. “I don’t know. But he’s been obsessing over it. You could have let him know you’re fine with it.”  
  
“I’m not ‘fine with it’,” Mycroft replied, squeezing the arm of his chair. “I don’t want to be the focus of his fantasy life, and I certainly don’t want him imagining me...” Mycroft glanced down at the envelope, then put a hand over his eyes. “Sherlock would know I was lying if I tried to claim otherwise.”  
  
“He doesn’t want to think about you any more than you want him to think about you,” John said.  
  
“I know that,” Mycroft replied, dropping his hand back down. “I don’t blame him for what he can’t control.”  
  
“You could at least tell him that.”  
  
“Do you honestly think my brother would appreciate another reminder of the lack of control he has over his own mind and body?” Mycroft asked. “From me, of all people?”  
  
John opened his mouth, then closed it again, sagging into the back of the chair. “Why did you come here?” he asked. “I mean, what do you intend to do?”  
  
“I intend to talk Sherlock out of this madness,” Mycroft replied.  
  
“The thought of Moriarty releasing the video doesn’t bother you, then?” John asked.  
  
Mycroft closed his eyes. “I would prefer it not be released,” he answered. “But for Sherlock’s sake more than mine.”  
  
John found the idea of Mycroft not caring who saw the video only slightly more plausible than the idea that Sherlock truly didn’t care. “You aren’t even the least bit bothered by the thought of everyone you know seeing that,” he stated blandly.  
  
“The members of my social circle, such as it is, aren’t inclined to gossip,” Mycroft replied. “In addition, most of the people I work with have already seen it, or are at least aware that it exists.”  
  
John blinked at him. “What?”  
  
Mycroft rolled his eyes. “You didn’t imagine that I kept a major security breach of this nature to myself, did you?”  
  
“Well, no,” John replied, remembering Mycroft calling whoever handled his security right after the first tape. “I just didn’t realize that you’d actually shown it to anyone.”  
  
“It was immediately recognizable as a threat, even before Moriarty made any concrete demands of anyone,” Mycroft replied. “My superiors needed to know exactly what he had to use against me.”  
  
“So, you just... showed them everything?” John asked, still dumbfounded. He wondered if Sherlock had realized Mycroft would show the video to other people, but quickly realized that he’d probably known the whole time.  
  
Mycroft sighed. “I don’t think you understand the threat that Moriarty poses to national security. We’d been keeping track of him for some time before this happened.”  
  
John stared at him. “If you’ve been keeping track of him, then why don’t you know where he is right now?”  
  
“We don’t know where he is or what he’s doing at every moment,” Mycroft replied. “If we did, he would never have been able to hold either me or Sherlock captive for any length of time.”  
  
“Can’t you just have him picked up the next time you know where he is?” John asked. “Why do you need to convince Sherlock to break it off?”  
  
Mycroft paused for a long moment before answering. “I would prefer convincing Sherlock to stop cooperating to ending the arrangement by force.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I have my reasons,” Mycroft replied.  
  
“I don’t suppose you’re actually going to tell me what those reasons are,” John said.  
  
Mycroft smiled at him. “No, I’m not.”  
  
John sighed.  
  
The two men fell into quiet brooding. John eventually made tea purely for the sake of having something to do. Mycroft accepted his cup with a murmured “thank you”, but only took a few sips before abandoning it on the table.  
  
John only got half-way through his own cup before leaving it to grow cold.  
  
After what felt like eternity, John heard the door open downstairs, followed by loud, quick footsteps on the stairs.  
  
Mycroft was on his feet and at the door in an instant, moving faster than John had ever seen him move before. He made as though to take another step forward, but then seemed to think better of it, positioning himself just next to the doorway.  
  
John stood as well, but remained near his chair.  
  
The footsteps on the stairs paused, then continued again. Sherlock rushed through the doorway several seconds later, shoulders tense, coat buttoned all the way from top to bottom.  
  
Sherlock turned toward the kitchen the moment he walked through the door. “Yes, I’m home. I don’t want to--” His eyes went wide as he noticed Mycroft. He took a step back, looking almost ready to turn around and run right back down the stairs. “Mycroft.”  
  
Mycroft frowned, eyes traveling up and down Sherlock’s body. “Are you all right?” he asked urgently. “What did he do to you?”  
  
Sherlock crossed his arms. “I’m fine.”  
  
“That’s not a full answer,” Mycroft replied.  
  
Sherlock walked over to the window.  
  
Mycroft followed him. “Sherlock.”  
  
Sherlock stared at the curtain. “Go away, Mycroft.”  
  
“No.” Mycroft took hold of his arm, forcibly turning Sherlock towards him.  
  
Sherlock put up less resistance than John would have expected.  
  
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Mycroft asked.  
  
Sherlock glared at his tie.  
  
“Look,” John began, “if he doesn’t want to tell you, he doesn’t want to tell you.”  
  
“Yes,” Mycroft replied. “But you see, Sherlock never actually _wants_ to tell me anything, least of all anything related to his wellbeing.” He deftly took hold of Sherlock’s scarf, unlooping it and tossing it to the ground. “I am quite used to finding such things out on my own.” He unbuttoned the top two buttons of Sherlock’s coat and lightly touched a hand to Sherlock’s neck, tilting his head down to look at the skin.  
  
Sherlock swallowed several times in succession. His eyes locked on Mycroft’s face, looking away only during those few moments when Mycroft actually tried to make eye contact. He bit his lip when Mycroft’s fingers pressed against a reddish spot just below his collar, but made no move to stop Mycroft from touching him.  
  
Mycroft swiftly unbuttoned the rest of Sherlock’s coat, sliding it from Sherlock’s shoulders and flinging it to the floor.  
  
John had been half-expecting Sherlock to be hiding something under there, but he looked fairly normal. There were no obvious signs of what he’d been doing for the past few hours -- at least, nothing obvious to someone like John.  
  
Mycroft quickly looked Sherlock over, then took one of his hands, pushing up the sleeve to inspect his wrists. Even a short distance away, John could tell that the pale skin wasn’t bruised, scraped, or otherwise damaged. Mycroft closed his eyes and let out a breath.  
  
Sherlock stared at him, his free hand twitching at his side. He looked away when Mycroft opened his eyes.  
  
Mycroft let go of Sherlock’s hand and took the other one, quickly repeating the check of the other wrist.  
  
Sherlock turned to face the window as soon as Mycroft let go. “Are you done?” he asked. “Or do you intend to do a full strip search?” He shifted in place, moving from foot to foot as though unable to find a way to stand comfortably.  
  
“No,” Mycroft replied. “I’ve seen what I needed to see.”  
  
“Then you’ll be going.”  
  
“No,” Mycroft replied. “Not until you agree to break off your deal with James Moriarty.”  
  
Sherlock stiffened. “What I’m doing with Moriarty is none of your business.”  
  
“None of my--!” Mycroft pressed his lips closed, rubbing his eyes.  
  
“It’s my... sex life,” Sherlock replied.  
  
Mycroft laughed. “Being blackmailed into performing sexual acts does not constitute a ‘sex life’,” he said. “You don’t even want--”  
  
“Don’t tell me what I do and do not want, Mycroft,” Sherlock interrupted.  
  
Mycroft gave an exasperated sigh. “Tell me you aren’t seriously trying to claim this is what you want.”  
  
Sherlock crossed his arms. “Perhaps it is,” he replied. “Perhaps it’s precisely what I want, and you should leave me to it.”  
  
“No,” Mycroft replied. He reached out both hands as though to take hold of Sherlock and shake him, but stopped halfway through, balling his hands into fists and dropping his arms to his sides. “If you’re truly that desperate to have sex with anonymous men to the sound of my voice, I assure you that it could be arranged _without help from Moriarty_ ,” he added, the last bit forced out through gritted teeth.  
  
Sherlock winced, but didn’t reply. The back of his neck turned pink.  
  
“You know he doesn’t actually want that,” John said.  
  
Mycroft kept his eyes on Sherlock’s face as he replied. “Yes. I know that, and you know that, but apparently Sherlock is much less clear on the matter.” He rested an elbow in one hand. “Well, Sherlock? Does my proposal sound the least bit enticing to you?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock muttered.  
  
“Then I believe we can safely agree that you aren’t in this for the sex.”  
  
Sherlock didn’t respond.  
  
“You don’t need to worry about protecting me,” Mycroft told him. “It’s too dangerous.”  
  
“He hasn’t forced me to do anything dangerous,” Sherlock replied. “I’ve always been free to leave at any time.”  
  
“I imagine that will soon change,” Mycroft said. “He’s threatened to put you in bondage, next.”  
  
Sherlock shivered. “I can always refuse.”  
  
“Would you?”  
  
Sherlock remained silent.  
  
“So, you’ll simply do anything he asks you to do, no matter how extreme?”  
  
“I’m not insane, Mycroft,” Sherlock replied. “If he goes too far, I’ll stop cooperating.”  
  
“How far is too far?” Mycroft asked. “You’ve let him beat you. What if he wants to whip or cut you? Would you stop then? What if he demanded you have sex with one of his mysterious men without a condom?”  
  
Sherlock shrugged.  
  
“You won’t stop,” Mycroft said flatly.  
  
Sherlock tilted his head back. “No.”  
  
Mycroft pursed his lips, then pressed a knuckle against his mouth. He took a deep breath, then dropped his hand. “I can force your compliance, if need be.”  
  
Sherlock squirmed awkwardly, then turned around and hurriedly sat in the nearest vacated chair. He crossed his legs, pulling the cushion out from behind him and resting it in his lap. His face was dark pink, line of vision focused on the table in front of him. His eyes narrowed when he looked at the envelope, but he didn’t move to pick it up.  
  
Mycroft looked slightly off-balance for a moment, but he quickly recovered, moving to take the opposite seat. “I’m serious, Sherlock.”  
  
“I’m sure you are,” Sherlock replied. “I’m still very curious about how you intend to _force_ me to do anything.” He glared at Mycroft, clutching the cushion tightly in his lap.  
  
Mycroft cleared his throat. “I could easily have you locked away, completely unable to get to Moriarty.”  
  
John moved to stand next to Sherlock’s chair. “You can’t just lock him away,” he said, already doubting the words even as they left his mouth.  
  
“Oh, but I can,” Mycroft replied. He tilted his head and smiled, though the smile faded almost immediately. “I assure you, it would only be temporary. Just long enough to ensure the deal is thoroughly broken.”  
  
“But--!”  
  
Sherlock held up a hand. “John. It’s all right.”  
  
John blinked at him. “He’s threatening to have you--”  
  
Sherlock ignored him. “Why _aren’t_ you locking me away, then, Mycroft?”  
  
Mycroft took a sudden, intense interest in one of his sleeves. “I would prefer it not to come to that,” he replied.  
  
“Or you need me to break it off personally for some reason,” Sherlock said, pressing his fingers against the cushion. “Such as Moriarty requiring me to end my deal if you’re to take my place.”  
  
Mycroft didn’t say anything.  
  
“I thought Moriarty said he would let Mycroft take your place if he offered,” John said.  
  
“He did,” Sherlock replied. “Either he was lying or he changed his mind.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter why,” Mycroft said. “Tell him you agree.”  
  
“No,” Sherlock said.  
  
“Sherlock--”  
  
“Everything you’ve said about the potential danger applies as much to you as it does to me,” Sherlock said. “And we both know I can handle danger far better than you can.”  
  
“Yes, but you can’t handle sexual situations better than I can,” Mycroft replied. “It won’t be difficult for me, I assure you.”  
  
“I’ve been handling sexual situations for months, Mycroft,” Sherlock said. “There’s no reason I can’t continue to--”  
  
John covered his face with both hands, only distantly listening to them argue back and forth over who should be the one to suffer Moriarty’s demands and why. The arguments on both sides were equally convincing, or non-convincing, depending on how he looked at it. After several long minutes, he threw his hands in the air and said: “This is ridiculous.”  
  
Mycroft glanced over at him. “Yes,” he replied. “Tell Sherlock exactly how ridiculous he's being.”  
  
“You’re both being ridiculous,” John clarified. “It doesn’t matter which one of you makes the deal. This is Moriarty. He’ll eventually get tired of whatever he’s doing and move on to something worse. Either he’ll switch the deal to the other person or he’ll demand that both of you do it or he’ll release the video just to see what happens.”  
  
Neither Mycroft nor Sherlock said anything.  
  
“You know it’s true,” John went on. “There’s always something new, and it’s always worse than what he's done before.”  
  
Mycroft sighed. “He’s right. Whatever we decide, it’s really only postponing the inevitable.”  
  
“I’m still not letting you take my place,” Sherlock said.  
  
“And I’m not letting you go back,” Mycroft replied. “I meant what I said -- I’m perfectly willing to have you locked away for your own safety.”  
  
“He’ll release the video,” Sherlock said.  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Everyone will see it.”  
  
“...I know,” Mycroft replied. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“It doesn’t bother me,” Sherlock said. He glanced down at the floor, then back at Mycroft. “But I know it bothers you.”  
  
“It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the thought of you doing what you’ve been doing,” Mycroft replied.  
  
Sherlock’s mouth tightened. “If I stop now, there will have been no point in having agreed in the first place.”  
  
“Don’t make yourself a slave to the sunk cost fallacy,” Mycroft replied.  
  
Sherlock looked ready to make an angry reply, but he bit his lip instead, squeezing his eyes shut. “Fine.”  
  
“Fine?” Mycroft repeated, sounding pleased. “You’ll tell Moriarty the deal is off?”  
  
“No,” Sherlock replied. “I simply won’t go.”  
  
“I see,” Mycroft told him, face falling slightly. “When is your next meeting scheduled?”  
  
“Three days from now.”  
  
Mycroft peered at him intently. “Perhaps you should come home for a week or two.”  
  
“Willingly let you hold me captive?” Sherlock replied. “I don’t think so.”  
  
“I need some kind of assurance that you aren’t lying to me with the intention of going anyway.”  
  
“John will be with me,” Sherlock said. “Right, John?”  
  
“Er. Yes,” John replied, somewhat surprised by his sudden inclusion in the conversation.  
  
“And you intend to be with him the full time?” Mycroft asked. “Every hour of every day, even when you’re sleeping?”  
  
“It’s only three days,” John replied.  
  
Mycroft laughed softly. “Yes. Only three days,” he replied. “Don’t bother. I’ll have Moriarty pulled in.”  
  
Sherlock sat up straight. “What?”  
  
“My superiors have been wanting to bring him in for months,” Mycroft replied. “I’ve had to continually dissuade them from doing so. However, if the video is to be released either way, it’s only logical that we have him brought in for questioning.”  
  
Sherlock’s eye twitched. “Fine. Have him brought in. It doesn’t matter.”  
  
Mycroft sucked in a breath through his teeth. “You’re certain?” he asked. He pulled his phone from his pocket, holding it up for them to see.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“All right,” Mycroft replied. He tapped something out on his phone, then hesitated, looking over at Sherlock again. After a few moments, he pressed the send button with his thumb and slipped the phone back into his pocket. “It’s done,” he said.  
  
“Good,” Sherlock replied.  
  
“So... that’s it then?” John asked.  
  
“Until whatever mechanism Moriarty has in place to release the video is triggered, yes,” Mycroft replied. “We’ll search his computers, but it’s doubtful he set it up anywhere that could be easily traced.”  
  
There was a short silence.  
  
Mycroft stood, picking up both his umbrella and the envelope. “I’ll be in touch.”  
  
He headed to the stairs before John had a chance to reply.  
  
John turned to Sherlock. “Are you really okay with this?”  
  
Sherlock steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, his eyes focused on the wall. “Quiet, John,” he replied. “I’m thinking.”  
  
“Right,” John replied. He hovered neWhile it felt as though the decision to break the deal should have brought horrible consequences down upon them immediately, in reality nothing out of the ordinary happened over the course of the next day. Mycroft called John to inform him that Moriarty had indeed been taken in successfully, but there were no mysterious messages or signs that the video had made its way on to the Internet.  
  
John tried to convince Sherlock to warn Lestrade about the video in advance, since he would undoubtedly feel compelled to investigate, but Sherlock refused to talk about the issue at all. Sherlock barely ate or slept, and he spent most of his time lying on the sofa staring up at the ceiling. John spent most of his time obsessively checking his email and blog comments.  
  
Both the second and third day came and went without incident, as did the fourth. John started to feel a certain amount of hope that whatever automatic system Moriarty had in place simply wouldn’t be triggered, until Sherlock informed him that he’d lied about the date of the next scheduled meeting -- it had been five days from the last one, not three.  
  
There was still no sign of the video even after a full week had passed. On the ninth day, John started to truly relax.  
  
And on the tenth day, he awoke to an inbox full of confused, angry comments about the _disgusting_ video he’d posted to the blog.


	9. Chapter 9

John immediately shot over to his blog to assess the damage. Sure enough, there was a video embedded in the latest post, right there on the front page. It autoplayed as soon as the page finished loading.  
  
There was no stop or pause button, but he clicked away to the login page after seeing only a few seconds. He attempted to log in, but got a message claiming his password was incorrect. Realizing that if he was receiving comments, then his email must still be linked to the blog, he tried the ‘recover password’ option.  
  
He got an email a minute later, subject heading: ‘I don’t think so, Johnny boy!’  
  
The body of the email consisted entirely of a list of links to a large number of video sites.  
  
John swore under his breath, then grabbed his phone. Mycroft had access to computer people. He would be able to get them taken down.  
  
The phone rang in his hand before he could make the call. Seeing it was Lestrade, he hit the ignore button for the moment.  
  
Mycroft picked up on the first ring. “John,” he said, voice strained.  
  
“He put the video up on the blog,” John blurted out. “On _my_ blog. He changed the password and I can’t--”  
  
“I already have someone working on it,” Mycroft replied.  
  
“He also sent a list of videos to--”  
  
“We have that as well,” Mycroft replied. “We’ve had sixteen of the forty-three taken down so far, but unfortunately, every time we block one, another two appear in its place.”  
  
“What? How?”  
  
“We believe he created some sort of program to ensure that the videos remain online, and upload more copies if they disappear,” Mycroft explained. “We’re working on getting the videos replaced instead of taken down, to prevent it from happening.”  
  
“Is there anything I can do?” John asked.  
  
“Stay with Sherlock,” Mycroft replied. He hung up before John could reply.  
  
“Right,” John said. He put the phone into the pocket of his robe and headed to Sherlock’s room.   
  
The door flung open before he could come up with any sort of plan. Sherlock took one look at him and swallowed. “It’s been released,” he stated.  
  
“I’m sorry,” John replied.  
  
“Where?” Sherlock asked. He picked up his laptop and carried it over to the bed, turning it on and looking at John expectantly.  
  
“On the blog. Other places. Mycroft is already taking care of it,” John said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible.  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” Sherlock replied, eyes focused on the laptop screen. “It’s already out there. The only thing we can do now is assess the damage.” He typed something on the keyboard.   
  
“What are you looking at?” John asked, sitting down next to Sherlock on the bed. He peered down at the screen, seeing the front page of his blog. “Wait, the video will--”  
  
The video started playing, showing the shot of Mycroft and Sherlock on the bed. John reached for the touchpad, but Sherlock pulled the laptop away.  
  
“What are you doing?” John asked.  
  
“I need to see how much of the video he released,” Sherlock replied. He hit the volume control; the room filled with the sound of gasping, accompanied by a slick, wet noise repeating steadily in the background. “I can already see that he cut everything before Mycroft started... stimulating me.”  
  
“That’s... look, if you really need to know, I can watch it and tell you,” John said, eyes focused everywhere but on the screen.  
  
“That won’t be necessary,” Sherlock replied. He stretched out on his stomach, bringing his head level with the screen.  
  
John swallowed. He had the urge to slam the laptop screen down, but rationally he knew there wasn’t much point. Sherlock had already seen the original video. He wouldn’t exactly be protecting him from much. “Do you want me to leave?” he asked, shifting to stand.  
  
“No,” Sherlock replied, not looking at him.  
  
“No?” John repeated, hoping he’d misheard the answer.  
  
“I don’t want to have to tell you what’s in this version of the video,” Sherlock replied. “You might as well stay and watch it.”  
  
“I could, ah, watch it on my own if it’s that important to you,” John replied, feeling less comfortable than he had ever felt in his life.  
  
Sherlock shrugged, then winced as the Mycroft in the video tried to put a hand on his shoulder on screen. There was a moment of complete silence.  
  
John sat back down on the bed. “He’s cut out the audio of you speaking,” he said. The picture skipped for a moment. “He’s also cut the bit with the gun.”  
  
“Quiet.”  
  
After that, the video played until the end without any more skipping. There was no spoken audio during the entire thing, though the other sounds had been left largely intact. The video stopped just after Sherlock collapsed on top of Mycroft.  
  
At which point it automatically restarted.  
  
John reached out and slammed the screen down. “There. You’ve seen it.”  
  
Sherlock stared down at top of the laptop, not saying anything.  
  
“Sherlock?”  
  
“He eliminated every indication that it wasn’t consensual,” Sherlock said.  
  
“He eliminated everything that would implicate him,” John replied, “but it’s obvious that it wasn’t consensual.”  
  
“No, it isn’t,” Sherlock replied. “It looks like Mycroft was encouraging me.”  
  
John opened his mouth, but let it fall closed again. It _had_ looked like Mycroft was encouraging Sherlock, largely because he _had been_ encouraging Sherlock. John had the knowledge of the actual situation and the context of the original audio to shape his perception of what Mycroft was doing and why, but any random person who viewed the video in its current state would have no idea. Even Mycroft’s concerned focus on Sherlock could easily be misread.  
  
“It was still obvious that you weren’t doing it willingly,” John said.  
  
Sherlock laughed. “Yes, that’s much better,” he replied. “The world will think _Mycroft_ forced me into it.”  
  
“But he wasn’t even--” John cut off before adding the word ‘aroused’, realizing that it went against everything he’d been trying to convince Sherlock of since learning what had happened. “No one will believe that once they have the real explanation.”  
  
“The explanation that a madman kidnapped us and forced us to have sex before releasing us completely unharmed? Please.”  
  
“Everyone who matters will believe it,” John replied. He considered naming specific people, but thought it would be more upsetting than comforting at the moment.  
  
As it was, Sherlock looked... not exactly comforted, but somewhat closer to normal.   
  
John’s phone rang in the pocket of his robe. He pulled it out and glanced at the screen. “It’s Lestrade,” he said.  
  
Sherlock stiffened.  
  
“Should I...?”  
  
“I don’t care,” Sherlock replied. He rested his head on his arms and closed his eyes as though fully intending to go back to sleep.  
  
John glanced down at the phone for a moment longer, then hit the ‘ignore’ button. Sherlock’s phone started ringing soon after.  
  
It continued to ring as John returned to his room to get dressed. John’s phone rang with another call from Lestrade just after he’d put on his shirt, then again with a call from Dimmock, who he hadn’t heard from in more than a year. This was followed by several texts from Lestrade and Donovan telling him to pick up his damn phone or at least check his blog, and then a call from Molly that he also ignored.  
  
John set his phone to silent. He would have turned it off entirely, but he wanted Mycroft to be able to reach him quickly, if necessary.  
  
He’d just settled down into a chair to have a moment to really _think_ about what to say to all the people trying to contact him when he heard someone on the stairs.  
  
“Sherlock!” Mrs. Hudson’s voice called. “John!” She came rushing through the door and right over to John’s chair. “John! What’s going on? Why is that video up on--”  
  
John had nothing ready to tell her.   
  
Mrs. Hudson turned towards the kitchen. “Sher--”  
  
John was on his feet in an instant, gently blocking her from going to Sherlock’s room. “I’m not sure he wants to see anyone else right now.”  
  
“What _happened_?” she asked. “Why was he... with that brother of his? And how did it get up on your blog?” she demanded, shaking his arm.  
  
John put a hand out to steady her. “Moriarty put it there. Mycroft is trying to get it taken down.”  
  
“Moriarty?” she repeated. “The man who--?” She glanced at the far wall, then back at John. “Did he force them to do what they were doing in the video, too?”  
  
“Of course he did,” John replied, voice possibly a little too harsh. “Why else would they being doing it?”  
  
Mrs. Hudson only shook her head. “Has Sherlock had breakfast yet?”  
  
“No,” John replied.  
  
“Never remembers to eat when he’s upset,” Mrs. Hudson said, pushing past John and going into the kitchen. “He’ll starve himself to death if we don’t do anything.” She looked in the refrigerator, winced, then started looking through the cupboards. “You don’t have anything at all, do you?”  
  
“I was supposed to go out today,” John admitted.  
  
“I’ll get something from downstairs, then,” Mrs. Hudson said, heading in that direction.  
  
“Thank you,” John called after her. He sat back down in his chair and stared into space.   
  
Several minutes later, he heard someone pounding on the front door. His phone lit up with a text.   
  
‘Let me in, damn it! GL’  
  
John was still debating whether or not to go downstairs and open the door when Mrs. Hudson made the decision for him.  
  
“Finally!” Lestrade said, footsteps echoing behind hers on the stairs. “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”  
  
Mrs. Hudson appeared in the doorway with a tray, walking right through the kitchen and back to Sherlock’s room. John’s attention was focused on Lestrade. “Um. Good morning.”  
  
Lestrade looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “No. No, it’s the complete opposite of a good morning,” he replied. “Why is there a video of Sherlock fucking his brother up on your blog? A not-entirely-consensual-looking video, at that?” He stared at John intently, as though he couldn’t entirely decide whether to consider him a victim or a suspect in the matter.  
  
“Moriarty,” John said quickly. “It was all Moriarty.”  
  
“The lunatic who likes blowing people up?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Lestrade opened his mouth, then pressed his lips together in a frown. “This is to do with that time Sherlock was kidnapped, isn’t it?” he asked, rubbing his chin. “When neither of you would explain what had happened and I was forbidden from investigating.”  
  
“Yes,” John answered. “Mycroft’s people are taking care of it. You really don’t have to do anything.”  
  
“Don’t have to--” Lestrade crossed his arms. “It doesn’t matter what Sherlock’s brother is doing. I still have to investigate.” He held up a hand when John started to interrupt. “The press are already demanding answers. They’ve _somehow_ already figured out that the man in the video is Sherlock’s brother. They want to know what’s going on, and what we’re doing about it. If we don’t tell them something--”  
  
“That’s what you’re concerned about?” John spat. “What the press think?”  
  
“If we don’t tell them something, they’ll come up with conclusions of their own,” Lestrade replied. “It’s bad enough that the video is out there in the first place; do you really want the press making up their own stories about what happened?”  
  
“No,” John said. “No, you’re right.”  
  
“I need to talk to Sherlock,” Lestrade said. When John continued to hesitate, he added: “Look, I had to fight to even be put on this case.”  
  
“All right,” John replied. He led Lestrade back through the kitchen and down the hallway to Sherlock’s room.  
  
The door was open. Sherlock lay on the bed with the tray Mrs. Hudson had brought, poking at his food with a fork but not eating it. Mrs. Hudson was seated next to him on the bed, rubbing his shoulder with one hand. “You have to eat something, Sherlock.”  
  
“Mrs. Hudson, would you excuse us for a moment?” Lestrade asked.  
  
“Of course,” she replied, getting to her feet. “As long as you promise to get that horrible, _horrible_ man.”  
  
Sherlock winced almost imperceptibly.  
  
“I’ll do my best,” Lestrade replied, closing the door after her.  
  
John took Mrs. Hudson’s place next to Sherlock.  
  
Sherlock glared at his food intently.  
  
“I need to ask you a few questions--” Lestrade began.  
  
“Is this really necessary?” Sherlock replied, sounding almost exactly as he did when Lestrade demanded he follow standard police procedure at crime scenes.  
  
“Yes,” Lestrade replied. “You’re a victim of a very serious crime. _Several_ very serious crimes, in fact.” He took out a small notepad and pencil. “I need you to tell me what happened.”  
  
Sherlock scowled. “Moriarty’s men ordered me into a car at gunpoint,” he replied. “Once I was in the car, one of them pressed a chloroformed rag to my nose, and I passed out. When I came to, I was naked on a bed in a windowless room with Mycroft.”  
  
“Was he conscious?” Lestrade asked, writing down each point as rapidly as Sherlock rattled them off.  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock replied. “Moriarty was there as well. He had a gun.” Sherlock glared down at his fork. “The rest is in the video. I don’t need to waste my time explaining what happened.”  
  
“That’s not how it works, unfortunately,” Lestrade replied. “We can’t hear what any of you are saying in the video, for one thing.”  
  
John immediately thought of the original copy of the video. He met Sherlock’s eyes, looked upward in the direction of his room, and then back at Sherlock again with a questioning expression.  
  
He took Sherlock’s responding scowl as a definitive ‘no’ on mentioning it.  
  
“I don’t see what else you need to know,” Sherlock told Lestrade. “You know exactly who the culprit is, what he did, and how he did it. The case is solved.”  
  
“I know that’s how you see things, but that’s not where my job ends,” Lestrade replied. “I can’t arrest Moriarty without some kind of evidence. As he’s not visible in the video, the only thing we’ll have is your testimony as to what happened. And that of your brother, of course.”  
  
Sherlock sat up straight. “Testimony?” he repeated. “You want me to testify in court?”  
  
Lestrade rubbed his collar. “Yes,” he replied. “I know what I’m asking will be hard on you--”  
  
“It won’t be hard on me,” Sherlock interrupted. He lay back down on the bed, took a bite of toast, and swallowed it. “I’ll do it.”  
  
John blinked at him.  
  
Lestrade tilted his head. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Yes,” Sherlock replied. “Talk to me after you’ve arrested him.”  
  
John put a hand over his eyes, suddenly understanding what Sherlock was doing.   
  
Lestrade, however, took the request differently. “If you’re worried about retaliation--”  
  
“I’m not,” Sherlock replied quickly. “I just don’t want to bother giving you a detailed account unless it’s truly necessary.”   
  
Lestrade sighed. He closed the notebook and tucked it away in his pocket. “I _will_ want to talk to you later,” he said. “I’ll just talk to your brother first.”  
  
The corner of Sherlock’s mouth curled downward just a hint. “Go right ahead,” he said, taking another bite of his toast.  
  
Lestrade left the room, closing the door behind him.  
  
“They aren’t going to be able to arrest Moriarty, and you know it,” John said, simultaneously sending a text to Mycroft to warn him of Lestrade’s imminent arrival.  
  
“Then you’d have to agree that there’s no need to give Lestrade a detailed account of what happened.”  
  
“Do you think Mycroft will give him one?”  
  
Sherlock pressed his hands together. “I don’t know,” he replied.  
  
John paused. “If you gave him your copy of the tape...”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
Sherlock shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t want him to know that Moriarty has contacted me since the incident,” he replied. “It would only mean more annoying questions to answer.”  
  
“You don’t intend to tell him about the rest of what Moriarty did, then?” John asked.  
  
“No,” Sherlock answered. “There’s no point.”  
  
They both fell quiet. John sat and brooded while Sherlock picked at his food, eventually finishing a little less than half of what Mrs. Hudson had given him. He pushed the tray over to John when he was finished, waving it away. “I’m done.”  
  
Seeing no reason to waste perfectly good food -- or to make the effort to procure his own breakfast -- John plopped the tray into his own lap and picked up the fork.  
  
Sherlock pulled the laptop in front of him and opened it. The sound of the video started playing immediately.  
  
“You aren’t going to watch it _again_ ,” John said, setting the fork back down on the tray.  
  
“No,” Sherlock replied. He tapped a few keys and the sound stopped. “Not yet, anyway.”  
  
John picked the fork back up. “What are you doing, then?”  
  
Sherlock typed something else, looking at the screen the whole time. “I want to see if--” He stopped, eyes rapidly moving back and forth across the screen as though reading. He hit the down key several times.  
  
“What?” John took a bite of sausage.  
  
“It’s already in the news.”  
  
“Wha--?” John gulped down the bite he’d just taken. “But it only happened this morning! It’s not even noon.”  
  
“Someone moved quickly,” Sherlock replied. He tilted his head downward slightly. “Mycroft is mentioned by name.”  
  
“Lestrade mentioned that the press had already figured out his identity,” John said. “I didn’t realize he meant it had already been mentioned in an article.”  
  
“It has,” Sherlock said shortly.  
  
“Are you sure you want to be reading that?” John asked.  
  
“I want to know what they’re claiming,” Sherlock replied. “They haven’t gone beyond saying that it’s ‘allegedly’ me having sex with Mycroft in the video, and that it was posted on your blog.”  
  
“I thought you didn’t care what anyone thought of it,” John said, hoping to dissuade him from reading further.  
  
Sherlock looked away. “I don’t,” he insisted. “I just want to know how much they’ve been able to piece together.” He typed away at the keyboard for a few seconds. The sound of the video started up again, but disappeared after Sherlock tapped the touchpad.  
  
“What are you doing now?” John asked.  
  
“Reading the comments on your latest blog entry.”  
  
“What? Don’t read those!” John said, reaching out to close the laptop lid again.  
  
Sherlock batted his hand away, then pulled the laptop into his lap. “Why not?”  
  
“I’ve only read a few of them, but believe me, they weren’t anything you want to see,” John said.  
  
Sherlock ignored him, eyes focused on the screen. “Some of these people think _you_ did this,” he said with a scowl.  
  
“The video is up on my blog and the post was created using my account,” John said. “Of course they think I posted it.” He took the one remaining bite of food from the plate.  
  
“No,” Sherlock replied. “Not posted the video. Some of them think you _created_ the video.”  
  
“What? No.” John grabbed the laptop away from Sherlock, who made no move to take it back.  
  
There were several hundred comments total.  
  
The first few were the ones he’d seen already in his email -- confused comments from die-hard fans angry about what they were seeing and demanding he take down the video. There were also a few disturbing comments from those who _liked_ the video and wanted to know exactly who Sherlock was having sex with.  
  
There was an almost incomprehensible comment from Harry that John didn’t waste more than a second trying to decipher, followed by a handful more comments from other people he actually knew, like Mike Stamford, asking what was going on.   
  
A little further in, some of the fans started coming up with theories about the video, arguing vehemently about who Sherlock was having sex with, whether he was doing it willingly, who was recording it and why, and why John had posted it.  
  
The comments were divided on whether or not Sherlock actually wanted to be doing what he was doing; roughly half of the people posting seemed to believe he was a willing, if nervous participant. The other half thought it was obviously coerced, though the theories on who had done the coercing ranged from John to ‘the man in the video’ to a timid ‘was it Jim?’ from Molly.  
  
And then there was a comment of “Isn’t that Sherlock’s brother?!” from Sebastian Wilkes, and the arguing exploded. At first most of the people posting didn’t believe it, declaring him to be lying outright. However, there was soon a second explosion of people who’d sought out the blog after reading the article about it, and they confirmed having read that the man was Sherlock’s brother.  
  
By the end of the page, roughly a third of the people seemed convinced that John had coerced the two of them into having sex, while another third believed he and Mycroft had coerced Sherlock together, and the final third didn’t believe John had done anything other than post the video. There was a tiny minority of people suggesting that the site had been hacked, but they were greatly outnumbered by the other three groups.  
  
John rubbed his face. “Do you think I should... say something? On the blog?”  
  
“Say what?” Sherlock asked.  
  
“I don’t know,” John answered. “Something to explain what’s going on.”  
  
Sherlock folded his hands in front of his mouth. “Tell them whatever you want to tell them,” he said eventually. “It’s not important.” He stood, walking over to the bathroom and closing himself inside.  
  
John hesitated a moment, reluctant to take Sherlock’s supposed indifference to the matter completely seriously. In the end, he posted a short comment saying only that the blog had been hacked and the video put up without his knowledge, and that he had no way of taking it down himself.  
  
He then took the empty tray back down to Mrs. Hudson.  
  
By the time he came back upstairs and sat down in a chair with his laptop, there were already over twenty comments in response to the one he’d posted.  
  
Half claimed they’d been certain the site was hacked the whole time, while the half didn’t believe him at all. All of them demanded more details.  
  
John tried to post another short comment telling everyone to back off, but got a message telling him his connection had timed out. Refreshing the page produced the same result, and he quickly realized that the entire blog was down.  
  
John sighed in relief. He had no idea whether it had been Mycroft’s people or the massive amount of people commenting that had taken down the blog, but he was grateful either way.  
  
Sherlock joined him in the sitting room a few minutes later, fully dressed and hair wet. He lay down on the sofa and stared at the ceiling.  
  
John set the laptop down on the coffee table. He watched Sherlock for a moment before turning on the television. He flipped mindlessly between channels, never staying on any one for more than a few minutes.  
  
Sherlock ordered him to stop when the news came on. John held his breath through the entire program, but there was no mention of the video or anything related to it. He went back to flipping through channels afterward.  
  
Sherlock snatched John’s laptop from the table and started tapping away. About half an hour later, he announced: “The remaining videos have been taken down.”  
  
“That’s good,” John said, straightening himself up out of the slouch he’d fallen into. “No one else will see it now.”  
  
“It’s already up on several file sharing sites,” Sherlock replied. He paused. “I don’t think Moriarty is responsible.”  
  
John closed his eyes and covered his face with one hand. “Mycroft should be able to find out who _is_ responsible, right?” he asked, wondering whether there would be any hope of convincing Mycroft to give him the names and let him deal with them.  
  
“If they weren’t intelligent enough to disguise their IP addresses, yes,” Sherlock replied. “But there’s not much he can do to those located outside of the country.”  
  
“Oh.” John dropped his hand from his face and blinked. “Right.” While he’d known the video was on the Internet and could be seen by everyone in the country, it hadn’t fully hit him that _anyone_ in the _entire world_ could be watching it.  
  
There was a knock at the door downstairs. John heard Mrs. Hudson walk to the door, pause, and then hurry up the steps.   
  
“Sherlock,” she whispered. “There’s a reporter at the door.”  
  
John walked over to the window and peeked through the curtains. Sure enough, there were a man with a camera and a woman with a microphone standing outside the door.  
  
“Don’t let them in,” John said. “And don’t talk to them, either.”  
  
“Of course not,” Mrs. Hudson said, giving him a disapproving look. “If either of you need me to sneak you out the other door, let me know,” she added, and then disappeared back down the stairs.   
  
There were several more knocks on the door.  
  
“It doesn’t sound like they’re going away,” John said.  
  
“They won’t,” Sherlock replied. “We may need to take Mrs. Hudson up on her offer.”  
  
“Are you thinking of going somewhere?” John asked.  
  
“Not currently,” Sherlock replied. He stood up and began pacing back and forth across the room.  
  
John sat back down in his chair. He alternated between staring at the television screen and watching Sherlock.  
  
There were sporadic knocks on the door every fifteen to twenty minutes or so, and Sherlock gave a glance out the window every once in a while, never looking entirely happy about whatever he was seeing.  
  
Mrs. Hudson came back up stairs in the middle of the afternoon to announce that she was going out and would be willing to pick them up some milk and bread ‘just this once’.  
  
Sherlock was too busy glaring out the window to notice her, but John thanked her for the both of them.  
  
“Staring at them won’t make them go away,” John said after Mrs. Hudson had left. “I’m sure they haven’t changed all that much from the last time you looked.”  
  
“You’re right,” Sherlock replied, dropping the curtain and taking several steps away from the window. “They’ve only multiplied in number.”  
  
“They have?” John rushed over to the window.  
  
There were at least two dozen people milling around outside the front door.  
  
John swore under his breath. “There has to be a way to get rid of them,” John said. “We can call Lestrade--”  
  
“Lestrade won’t be able to do anything about it until they’ve done something illegal,” Sherlock interrupted. He sat down on the sofa.   
  
“Then what do you want to do?” John asked.  
  
“Nothing,” Sherlock replied, lying down with his arms folded behind his head.  
  
“Nothing?” John repeated.  
  
“If nothing interesting happens, they’ll get bored and move on to some other ‘news’ eventually,” Sherlock said.  
  
“I hope you’re right,” John replied.  
  
It wasn't until John opened his email the next morning that he realized there was a major flaw in the plan.


End file.
